


Fugitive

by bomberqueen17



Series: Meet Death Sitting [8]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Abusive Parents, Cat School (The Witcher), Comfort, Gen, M/M, Major Depression, Mind Control, Must Be A Level IV Friend To Unlock This Tragic Backstory, Original Characters - Freeform, Suicide Attempt, family trauma, geralt is a good bro, outsider pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-02-23 01:34:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23670274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bomberqueen17/pseuds/bomberqueen17
Summary: The next time Geralt ran into Jaskier after the plague, he had occasion to return the favor of the ice cream.UPDATED now with plot!!!
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/OMC
Series: Meet Death Sitting [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1639717
Comments: 314
Kudos: 847





	1. Chapter 1

_1247, somewhere in Aedirn_

The last time Geralt had been to this city, some twenty years before, there had been an extremely good herbalist with a shop on the high street. It was part of the reason he chose this city to come into and get a room at an inn, to rest for a couple of days after a number of contracts but also in the hopes of unloading some of the large collection of salable components he was lugging around in his saddlebags after a very busy season.

He was delighted to find that not only the shop but the herbalist herself was still there, elderly but spry, and he quite happily unloaded a great deal of his collection for quite a good price; she was very discerning, and she remembered him from the last time. 

It was nice, for once, to talk to someone who wasn’t hostile or suspicious. It had been a good successful season, in that he’d had a good run of lucrative contracts that he’d actually gotten paid for, but he’d also had to deal with a variety of very unpleasant people and sticky situations, and he had some new scars, he’d had to regrow half his teeth [see endnote], and he badly, badly needed a respite. Having an old woman speak kindly to him wasn’t something he’d have considered a luxury until this moment, when it felt so extravagantly wonderful, like a special present from the universe.

She also gave him directions to a stall in the market where he could get a good price for some of the other spell components in his bag, the monster parts and mutagens and other components no herbalist would use. Geralt traded back some of his newly-gotten coin for a few imported herbs she carried that he wasn’t likely to be able to collect on his own, because she was, after all, very discerning and if he was going to buy something, it ought to be from her. 

He left highly satisfied; he’d be able to spend tonight doing some quite advanced potion-crafting, and would wind up with some excellent additions to his personal arsenal as well as likely being able to sell some of his extra works either to the herbalist again or possibly to the market stall she’d recommended, if they turned out to be worthy of the recommendation. 

The scents of the market were largely pleasant, and he first followed his nose to a vendor selling pastries. He rarely indulged in such fripperies, but the scent was so alluring that he let himself buy a treat. For some reason it made him think of his little bard friend, Jaskier, who surely would have insisted on him having one. _See_ , he thought, _I_ do _treat myself nicely sometimes_ , but it made him unaccountably melancholy for some reason, and he wrapped the rest of the sweet flaky pastry in a napkin and stowed it in the side pocket of his satchel, appetite gone. 

It was fine, he’d eat the rest later. He should focus now.

The market stall he was looking for was down a side street, a little out of the main press of the market, behind a stall for a pawnbroker. He could smell the sharp unsettling tang of alchemical processes from down the block, and as he approached, a young man was sitting on a stool under the edge of the awning, smoking a pipe and perusing a printed broadside. 

The young man glanced up as he approached, giving him a casual once-over and then suddenly freezing as he saw the medallion, his affectedly-disinterested expression arrested into stillness. His eyes traveled slowly up to Geralt’s face, and fixed themselves there, wide and dark and shocked. 

“I have alchemical components to sell,” Geralt said, and held up a wyvern claw, which was the easiest thing to hand in his satchel. “Katrina the herbalist recommended your stall, I believe.”

“Ah,” the young man said, overcoming his paralysis, “yes, I’ll get the old man.” He left his broadsheet but took his pipe, and vanished into the back of the stall, and through a door in the wall behind. Geralt didn’t actually like that; people didn’t always go to get who they said they were going to get, and occasionally came back with a mob. But Katrina had recommended this place. 

Geralt occupied himself perusing the merchandise on offer. Some of it was quite obviously superstitious nothing, talismans and wards against the evil eye and whatnot. But some of it was actually powerful. He held the back of his hand out toward one of the more outlandish-looking talismans, frowning at it. He couldn’t actually tell if it was active, which probably meant it wasn’t.

Geralt didn’t mind a little white lie here and there, and if someone came to him with superstitious fear that couldn’t be allayed genuinely, he wouldn’t himself be above perhaps giving them something harmless but scary-looking to ward it off. But this sort of thing could have real consequences, if someone took it too seriously and thought it would make them immune to very real dangers. 

He’d have to ask the seller about it. He frowned, looking away, and his eye lit on the broadsheet the young man had left on the stool.

It was the usual sort of penny sheet one found around and about in larger cities like this where the notice-board couldn’t really scale up-- just a single sheet, printed both sides with salacious regional gossip, advertisements, the latest ballad lyrics, and occasional engravings. You never saw them in the countryside, but people could read, here. 

This one had, he noted absently, a Wife Wanted ad like Jaskier had so ridiculously pretended to compose for him. This one was looking for someone “sturdy and willing” to be a third wife to a widower. _Good luck with that one_ , Geralt thought, _but, points for honesty_. 

There was a snippet of a ballad that he could immediately identify as not Jaskier’s work but heavily derivative, about a knight-errant fighting a dragon, which was ridiculous. It had a specific line about the dragon’s forked tail, as well, and Geralt caught himself actually shaking his head. 

But a bit farther down there was another ad, for a missing child-- no, not a child. He frowned as he read it. _MISSING-- a nobleman’s son-- twenty-five years, near six feet tall, slender, dark hair, blue eyes, of a fast tongue and dissipated temperament, substantial reward offered for his return. Plays the lute and dresses notably as a fop, preferring bright colors. Reward only for information or safe return, send word via the Redanian embassy._

Geralt frowned, tapping his finger thoughtfully on the paper. That sounded… awfully familiar. He folded up the broadside and tucked it into the interior pocket of his coat. 

Someone was coming, and he returned to his contemplation of the talismans. This one was real, he could feel-- a ward against the evil eye, it looked like, but on examination, he’d wager that the resonance he felt from it was really indicating that it had a strong repellent property against vampires, which was never a bad idea. There was silver thread in it, and he could recognize a lot of components with vitriolic properties. It wouldn’t stop a higher vampire, but it might deter some of the lower ones. Better than a bulb of garlic, anyway.

The young man came out, and stood to one side as an older woman followed him through the door and came out into the stall. “A Witcher indeed,” she said.

“Katrina the herbalist told me you might have an interest in some of the things I’ve collected at my work,” Geralt said. 

The woman came closer, seemingly unafraid, and looked up at him. “You’re not the Witcher I’ve met before,” she said. 

“No,” Geralt said, “I haven’t been this way some twenty years.”

She peered at his medallion. “His amulet was different, too,” she said.

“Then he was of a different school than I,” Geralt said. “I probably don’t know him.” That likely wasn’t true. There weren’t that many Witchers left. 

“Aiden, his name was,” she said. 

“I don’t know him,” Geralt said. He’d heard the name. Cat school, he thought. It didn’t matter. 

“He was a thoroughly decent fellow,” she went on. “I’d heard all sorts of terrible things about Witchers, but he was fair and quite good.”

“That is well to hear,” Geralt said politely. “Well, I have an assortment of items that are surplus to my own alchemical needs, which I would be willing to sell to you if your price is good. And there might be a thing or two in your collection I’d like to acquire, in return. If you’re willing to deal with me, I’d like to see about that.”

She was, and so she brought him into the back of the stall and had him lay out his goods on a table. He unwrapped them carefully, and explained any relevant details, and she asked knowledgeable questions. 

Her offering prices were on the low side of fair, and he managed to argue her up to reasonability-- after all, his ingredients were not only absolutely fresh but also knowledgeably harvested, neither of which the average person gleaning from dead monsters was going to bring, and she eventually admitted that. In return she offered to sell him several things that were utter chicanery, but Geralt picked the one actually-useful thing out of the lot and she sold it to him for too cheap. 

For once, he’d accept a mistake in his favor, though he’d have conscientiously corrected her if she’d offered him a better price on his ingredients. In the end, the deal came out fairer than many, and he took his money and the single thing in her shop he had actually wanted with reasonable satisfaction, bundling it all into his satchel and leaving behind a great deal of clutter he now no longer had to carry. 

He bade her farewell, and she hesitated. “What was your name?” she asked.

“Geralt,” he said, “of Rivia.” He tapped his medallion. “Wolf school.”

“Oh,” the young man said. He’d watched the whole deal silently from his stool, his pipe gone out. “The White Wolf. From the ballad!”

“Yes,” Geralt said resignedly. “No, it didn’t happen like in the song, but yes, it happened, and yes, the bard really was there and really did get beat up, though they didn’t really kick in his teeth. He’s still got them, last I checked.” Humans couldn’t regrow teeth, he knew that one.

“It’s such a good song,” the young man said.

“It’s really not,” Geralt said. He personally found it trite and didn’t like the musical structure of it. He was no critic, but he had certainly heard it enough times to form a judgement. Jaskier was capable of much better work; that one was just designed to be catchy above all, and it succeeded. 

“Don’t you like being a hero of song?” the young man asked. “Like in the,” and he looked around for his broadsheet. “Oh, hm.” 

Geralt did not enlighten him. “Not particularly,” he said. “We don’t do this job for the fame, you know.”

“What do you do it for?” the young man asked. 

“Money,” Geralt said. 

“Is there that much money in it?” 

“No,” Geralt said, and took his leave as graciously as he could manage.

  
He wandered through the market a little more, though he didn’t need anything else. He bought some food and supplies, but not in a coordinated fashion, more in a desultory kind of whatever-caught-his-whim way, since he had coin and his satchel was empty. 

People mostly didn’t cringe away from him, though he caught some fearful looks. It was how he could tell Jaskier hadn’t been here, he caught himself thinking-- nobody sang the song at him. Maybe it was also just that the fad for it had died down. 

He stepped out of the crowd as he wandered past the mouth of an alley, and was considering his next course of action, absently scenting the air, when he caught a hint of something familiar, and focused on the scents around him. A person, something familiar in a person’s scent, a sweet sort of spicy note-- he corrected for the breeze and turned to look, it wasn’t any of the people who’d brushed past him, it was someone he had passed a moment ago, who was standing nearby, to the east, at the mouth of the alley which was drawing air-currents down it.

There was a person there, a man, tallish, pale skin, shabby cap, drably-dressed, leaning on a cracked hogshead barrel that had been left there. Fine-quality boots. The man noticed Geralt looking at him, and visibly reacted, starting in recognition.

Geralt did the same: it was Jaskier. Of course; that’s whose scent it was. He stepped closer, and said, “It’s you.”

“Geralt,” Jaskier said, tipping his head back a little and smiling a bit hesitantly as Geralt approached. For Jaskier, it was an extremely subdued greeting, and his demeanor matched it-- he looked sad, and tired, and much older than the last time Geralt had seen him. He smelled of not enough food, no recent baths, too much drink, and mostly he smelled of distress, fear, and misery.

“You look like you need a drink,” Geralt said. Actually he looked entirely like the opposite of that, but Geralt lacked the vocabulary for it. “I don’t have a drink but I do have something better.”

“And what’s that?” Jaskier asked, half-smiling. He must be exhausted, if that was all he could muster.

Geralt produced the napkin-wrapped half of a pastry. Jaskier took it in some confusion, unwrapped it, and then laughed. “Why do you have this?” he asked. 

“I do treat myself sometimes,” Geralt said. “But you can have the rest, it was too sweet for me to manage the whole thing.”

“Really,” Jaskier said, feigning nonchalance, but as soon as Geralt told him “yes, really,” he set to it and devoured the rest of the pastry. Likely, he hadn’t eaten in a day or two, from the look and smell of him.

“Why don’t you come back to where I’m staying,” Geralt said. He’d spotted a lute case and a satchel and he’d bet anything that was all the luggage Jaskier had. He picked up the lute, and Jaskier put up a token protest, but let him. 

“I guess I don’t have anything else going on at the moment,” he said, with almost-convincing nonchalance.

The inn was rowdy for the time of day, and Geralt didn’t have to pay very much attention to see the way Jaskier flinched at the noise as they came through the door, an expression of real fear crossing his face. “I already have a room,” Geralt said, “just come up, I’ll get food and bring it up.”

“You don’t mind?” Jaskier asked.

“I still owe you for that ice cream,” Geralt said. He led Jaskier up the stairs and into his room, then went back down and had a bath sent up for him. He came back up with food, and took all of Jaskier’s clothes once the kid had climbed into the tub to wash-- every stitch, he had far less luggage than he usually traveled with and every single garment was filthy. Jaskier didn’t look as thin as he had after the plague-- he was on the thin side, but obviously, the lack of food was a recent short-term thing, because he otherwise seemed in decent condition, just a bit pinched. Geralt collected his own laundry as well and brought it all down for the inn to launder, because he had the coin and might as well.

Clearly, something awful was going on with Jaskier, and now wasn’t the time to be stingy.

He came back up one last time, and found Jaskier asleep in the tub. “Don’t drown,” he said, and Jaskier’s head jerked up with startlement. “Come on, get out of there if you’re clean.”

Jaskier obeyed sleepily, and Geralt gave him one of his own clean shirts to wear since all of his things were in the wash. He pulled it on, and since Geralt had been occupying the room’s chair, he sat on the bed and picked desultorily at the food, winding up just sitting there holding a mug of small beer in both hands and blinking red-eyed down into it. It struck Geralt, then, that he’d known the kid nearly a decade, and he wasn’t a kid at all, by _anyone’s_ standards. He had filled out some; he was less reedy, his jaw a little thicker, and Geralt’s shirt didn’t actually hang off him entirely, and-- well, he just looked awful at the moment. Worse than when he’d been rail-thin and freshly recovered from the plague. He just looked beaten-down. Someone had hurt him, not physically, and Geralt steeled himself, sat back down in the chair, and said, 

“Do you need anything else?”

To his alarm, Jaskier looked stricken, and his eyes welled over. The bard wiped his face on the cuff of his borrowed sleeve in annoyance, and said thickly, “Why are you being so kind to me?”

“I’m not doing anything for you that you haven’t done for me,” Geralt said, instead of saying something stupidly soft that would surely come out wrong anyway. “When’s the last time you slept in a bed?”

“I’m,” Jaskier said, and wiped his face again. “I’m kind of-- on the run,” he said dully, keeping his eyes averted.

“What did you do this time?” Geralt asked. “No, don’t tell me.”

“I didn’t,” Jaskier began, hurt, but bit it off. “No, you’re right,” he said, in a moment, and he sounded so-- defeated, was the best word for it. “You and I are sort of--” he flopped a hand, gesturing back and forth between them, “--predicated on not talking about it, whatever it is, so it’s best not to.”

“I’m like that with everybody,” Geralt said. “Don’t take it personally.”

Jaskier looked at him in clear exhaustion, a wave of misery coming off his scent, and then nodded and looked down into his mug again. “Of course,” he said quietly. 

Geralt had been a kind ear for more people than one might think. He was a terrifying inhuman monster, sure, but Witchers sometimes were there for people in their worst moments, and had a demonstrable track record of solving arguably the worst of their problems, and sometimes he’d been the only person who cared about what had really happened, and the only reason for justice getting served. He’d sat with widows, carried orphans to safety, locked his arms around grief-crazed fathers so they wouldn’t run into a pyre after the bodies of their children. He knew how this worked, had a fair notion of what kinds of noises a person made to comfort another person in a situation like that. 

It just took some preparation. But this wasn’t the demeanor of a man who’d been dumped by a pretty lady or was on the run from a jealous husband, or any of the usual Jaskier types of drama. The Missing notice in the broadsheet hadn’t mentioned any such thing either. Obviously, there was something worse going on. He took a quiet, deep breath to fortify himself, rubbed his face, tilted his head, and said, “Maybe you’d better tell me.” He dug out the broadside, folded it to the right section, and handed it over. 

Jaskier read it, at first with curiosity, then dismay, and finally with a bleak grimness. “Of course,” he said. 

“That is you, then,” Geralt said.

“Where’d you find this?” Jaskier asked. 

“In the marketplace,” Geralt said. “Today.”

“Of course,” Jaskier said grimly, looking utterly miserable. “I have to keep running.”

“Wise not to get the lute out either,” Geralt said. But without it, Jaskier’s options for earning coin to support himself were few and unappealing. 

Jaskier sighed. “It’s,” he said, then his face worked its way through a number of expressions, none of which Geralt could really parse. “I didn’t _do_ anything,” he went on eventually. “It’s not like that.”

“I didn’t really think it was,” Geralt offered. 

“Well, to be fair, it usually is,” Jaskier said, with a watery laugh. 

“Right,” Geralt said. He expected Jaskier to take off chattering, but he didn’t, and they sat there quietly for a moment, Jaskier clearly composing himself. 

The silence went on a while, and usually Geralt was the master of outlasting anyone else in an awkward silences kind of contest, but he’d resolved to be helpful, so finally he played the one card he figured he had, which was deadpan self-deprecating humor. “If it’s something really sad, there’s likely not very much I can do, seeing as Witchers don’t have emotions.”

Jaskier gave him a shocked look. “That’s horse shit,” he said. 

“Not at all,” Geralt said, putting on his best deadpan-serious face. 

“I’ve witnessed you have a full spectrum of emotions that would put a professional actor to shame,” Jaskier said. “You don’t even believe that bullshit.”

“Mm,” Geralt said, and drank a little more from his cup. “You think that’s what you’ve seen. I’ve been deluded by it too, don’t get me wrong. But I had it all explained to me, a while ago, by a friendly mage. You see, what seem like emotions in Witchers are really mostly reflexes, instincts, faint echoes of what it is that humans really feel. So what it is that I really have, are just those-- the reactions a sentient creature needs to have in order to understand other sentient creatures. But that doesn’t make them really emotions.”

Jaskier stared at him open-mouthed. “Someone _said_ that to you?” he demanded, soft and incredulous and horrified, which was a much more sincere response than Geralt had been hoping for. 

“Mm,” Geralt assented, raising his eyebrows in a parody of earnestness. Jaskier usually caught on by now, this wasn’t a good sign.

“I hope you put your fist through his face,” Jaskier said, indignant.

Geralt made a contemptuous face and shook his head. “You can’t punch a mage,” he said. “Doesn’t work. Gets you dead.”

“But it would be such a tidy demonstration of how wrong he was,” Jaskier said.

Geralt shrugged. “No, anger is a base emotion, an instinct really.” He smiled, showing all his teeth. “I get those. It’s the higher emotions I can’t fully comprehend. The finer feelings, you know? Altruism. Love. The stuff they make art about.”

“They make art about everything,” Jaskier said. 

“I wouldn’t know,” Geralt said. This was more sarcastic than he’d meant to get, as well. “But you can console yourself that’s why I never seem excited about your songs. I simply don’t have the parts required to understand them.”

“ _What_ parts,” Jaskier said, wildly indignant. “Emotions happen in the same parts of your brain as speaking and you obviously have _those_ parts.”

“Reflex,” Geralt said. “Instinct. Listen, whatever your problem is, if it’s a monster, I can help, but if it’s feelings, I just can’t relate.”

“You’re having me on,” Jaskier said finally, after far too long a blank pause. 

Geralt gazed at him for a moment, and then finally said, “Well. A little.” And he gave Jaskier a wry grin. “I appreciate the defense, though. I mean, not that I have the capacity to appreciate loyalty, mind you.”

“Stop,” Jaskier said, laughing reluctantly. “You’re an asshole. I can’t _believe_ that was a joke.”

Geralt made a little mock-bow without stirring from his chair. “At your service,” he said. 

Jaskier looked less miserable now, at least, and he looked down into his mug with a little sigh of laughter. “Oh, Geralt,” he said. “I do appreciate the reminder that my problems are not really that big, in the grand scheme of things.”

“I didn’t say that,” Geralt said, frowning. That wasn’t what he’d been trying to get across, at all. Trust him to find a way to be an asshole to someone in the midst of a studied attempt at the opposite. 

“No,” Jaskier said, waving a hand. “No, of course you didn’t-- but, Geralt, there you are being dehumanized all the time in these fundamental ways, and I’ve got my poor little rich boy problems. I’ll be fine, and I appreciate your kindness.”

Geralt had figured out ages ago-- basically, from his first look at the kid-- that Jaskier came from money. Nobody was flamboyant like that, nobody wore perfectly-tailored little fitted jackets like that and rolled around in the dirt in them, nobody switched accents so seamlessly and unselfconsciously and always defaulted back to a ridiculously high-class one when they weren’t paying attention, who hadn’t come from money. And Geralt had known his share of nobility-- for so almost all of the rich were, in this part of the world, whether by breeding or having married into it once they had money, or what-- and generally knew what to expect from them. Jaskier generally managed not to be quite like any of that, which was what made him tolerable. 

“I promise I won’t laugh at your poor little rich boy problems,” Geralt said, “since most of the time I’ve known you, you’ve been broke.”

Jaskier sighed. “And extra-broke at the moment,” he said. He sighed, and then said, “Well, my father’s dying.”

“I’m sorry,” Geralt said, sincerely enough. Jaskier didn’t speak for a moment, looking down at the cup in his hands, so sad-looking Geralt felt like he had to try another conversational gambit. He went for personal revelation, since Jaskier was always trying to draw him out about things.. “While that’s not a specifically rich-boy problem, I have to admit that I actually specifically can’t relate.”

“Your father’s alive?” Jaskier asked, giving him an amused but sad look. 

“No,” Geralt said. “Just--” He shook his head. “Never knew him, never knew of him, can’t fathom what it would be like to know whether he were alive or dead, can’t imagine it being relevant.”

“Must be nice,” Jaskier said hollowly, and then shook himself and looked up, grimacing in horror at himself. “See? See! _Stupid_ poor little rich boy self-pity.” There was a self-directed viciousness to his tone that was jarring.

Geralt looked at him for a moment, then looked down at his hands, this time making much of gathering himself, for humorous effect. “I can’t believe,” he said slowly, “that I am going to have to be the one to say this to you, Jaskier, but-- your feelings--” He paused, breathed out, and breathed back in again. “Are valid, and other people seeming to have it worse or not doesn’t change that.”

It worked; Jaskier laughed. “Did that hurt?” he said. “It sounded like it hurt.”

“It did hurt, a bit,” Geralt admitted. “Now don’t make me say it again. I’m sorry to hear of your trouble.”

“Thank you,” Jaskier said, subdued.

Something occurred to Geralt, and he hesitated a moment. “Is it that you can’t make it there... in time?” he asked delicately.

Jaskier glanced up, then away. “No,” he said. “I-- can’t go at all.”

He was on the run, after all. “Oh,” Geralt said. He frowned, puzzled. “Is it-- _related_ to you being a fugitive?”

Jaskier sighed. “It’s a stupid story,” he said, and rubbed his face.

“All your stories are stupid,” Geralt assured him. Jaskier looked up again, and laughed reluctantly. “No, I mean it, go on.”

“It’s,” Jaskier said, and gestured with one hand. “I mean, part of our deal, you and me, is that we don’t talk about-- things, right?”

“Well,” Geralt said. “That’s my deal with everyone, but it gets awkward if it’s not reciprocal.”

“Right,” Jaskier said. “Anyway. So, the no-details version is, my relationship with my family is very strained and has never been good. Part of my father’s deal is, he’s got this job, and it’s hereditary. When he dies, the job goes to his heir. It’s actually an important job, not just a figurehead-y one, has real responsibilities and things. It is a job I am _extremely_ unqualified to do. Fortunately for all of us, I have an older sister. She is very competent. She will do this job very well. She is his rightful heir, and there is no problem with any of this.”

“I sense that there must be a problem,” Geralt said. 

“My older sister is really my older _half_ -sister,” Jaskier said. “Her mother died, my father remarried, I am the product of this remarriage. This is no problem, except that my mother is very ambitious. At first she wanted to just marry me off to someone powerful but when that didn’t work, she set her sights on having me, _her son,_ be the heir instead. It seemed obvious to me from the start that this was stupid, and bad, because of many things but in part just sort of-- how I am? As a person? If you’d ever wondered, I have always been like this.”

“I hadn’t wondered,” Geralt said, but let himself sound fond. 

“See, _no_ one wondered,” Jaskier said. “But I thought, I would make it easier on everyone, and simply absent myself. If I am not present, nobody can start to think that maybe my mother is right and I should inherit instead of my older sister, who is dutiful and well-behaved and competent and good at keeping track of things and nice to all the right people and just in general a much better person than I am-- well, if I’m just not there, then they have no choice but to put her in charge of things, as she ought to be.”

“Makes sense,” Geralt said.

“Thank you,” Jaskier said. He sighed, and sat back. “So I have just. Not visited home much, and. Well. If maybe more scandalous stories spread about me than were even strictly true, well-- I mean, it’s not that there wasn’t a grain of truth in most of them.”

Geralt inclined his head. “And meanwhile your sister has never done anything wrong.”

“She is _so_ respectable. She got married,” Jaskier said. “A couple of years ago. Mm, it was after I’d met you, but not long after, I think. Early in the spring, one year. I turned up. It was perfectly lovely. She picked a very suitable, very sensible, very respectful young man who is very nice to her and they’ll be very happy together and make perfectly reasonable heirs for the inevitable time when it’s her turn to-- exit this mortal realm.” He waved a hand. “They’ve got one already, a boy I think. Anyway. It was so nice.” 

He looked dreamy, but with a brittle edge to it, and without changing his expression, he continued, “And then my dad locked me in a room and it took me nine days to break out.”

“He actually locked you up?” Geralt said, startled.

“He did,” Jaskier said. “It was. Well, it was-- horrible.” He leaned over to set his empty mug down on the table, and wiped angrily at his eyes with the cuff of his sleeve, still grinning viciously. “It’s such a stupid, melodramatic story,” he muttered. “He’d reinforced the windows and the door. He’d been preparing for me to come. He’d planned it. He and my mother.”

“That’s awful,” Geralt said. These were the people who’d _thrown that beautiful boy away_ , in Solon’s words. These were the people Jaskier had been informing that he’d survived a plague only by sticking them with a resort bill. It all made a great deal more sense now, awfully; you wouldn’t go in person to see people who’d locked you up in the past.

“It is,” Jaskier said. He covered his face with his hands a moment, breath hitching as he tried to compose himself. He was trying _so_ hard to keep himself under control, and it was futile. “There were accompanying lectures and such, strategic denial of food and so on, and it was clear to me that all my work on distancing myself had been wasted. I would have to give up everything I know how to do, to do this job that my sister would love to do instead,” and he gestured emphatically, “and I know to you that doesn’t seem like-- but I _do things_ besides this, I’m not _just_ a bard, I have-- other jobs, and things, it doesn’t sound like much when I say it like this but I have a whole life besides annoying you, I promise I do.”

“I never said you didn’t,” Geralt said, and he had mostly never really considered where Jaskier went when he wasn’t following him around, though he knew the man had mentioned Oxenfurt, had mentioned publishing books, had mentioned poetry. He’d never let himself be more curious than that. But he never saw him in the winter, and now that he thought about it, usually ran into him in fairly predictable places at regular intervals. 

“And maybe that’s selfish of me,” Jaskier said, “to want to hang onto the life I have, the things I’ve devoted my life to studying-- but I only did that in the first place because an alternative exists. Tristina is competent, she has been educated for this, she has been observing my father at work since we were small. She is prepared for this role and she wants to do it. If I take it instead, she is left with nothing.”

“She does seem like the obvious choice,” Geralt said.

“And in the beginning, our father _had_ chosen her,” Jaskier said. “She was carefully educated for that purpose at his encouragement! It is only in later years that my mother has swayed him. And now there’s no logic to it at all.” He waved wildly, and then wrapped his arms around himself. “For the record, I already checked-- if I take the job, and then later back out, I technically become an oathbreaker and a traitor to the King, and, well. It’s not good.” 

“So you can’t go home,” Geralt said.

“I can’t,” Jaskier said. “And I can’t--” His mouth worked for a moment, and his eyes welled up and he had to be quiet for a moment before he could continue. He looked so miserable Geralt felt awkwardly that he ought to do something, but had no idea what. “I found out he’s dying because he tried to have me abducted and brought back there, to put back into that prison he’s made for me until I submit. I escaped and have been on the run ever since. It’s so stupid, Geralt, but.” His eyes welled again, and he shoved his wrist against them, as if he could keep it from happening. 

“It’s not stupid,” Geralt said. 

“It’s so melodramatic I couldn’t even put it into a poem,” Jaskier said. “It is utterly stupid. But, anyway. I’m on the run and I’m just. I guess. Waiting to hear that the old man is dead.”

“I’m guessing he wasn’t always horrible to you,” Geralt said.

Jaskier shoved both hands over his face, and sobbed. “No.”

“Ah,” Geralt said. “That’s, well, it’s a shame.”

“I’m stupid and ungrateful,” Jaskier said, and he couldn’t push back the tears any longer, so he was just crying now, “but he never cared who I actually was, just what he wanted, and I tried to-- I tried, Geralt, and I can’t, I’m not, but he did love me, once, maybe--” and then he was crying too hard to talk.

Geralt sighed. There was nothing for it, now. He got up, and went over, and sat on the bed, and put his arms around Jaskier. “Oh, no, don’t,” Jaskier said feebly, fending him off, but Geralt wrapped his arms around him and pulled him in tightly, and it took less than two breaths for all the resistance to go out of his body. 

Jaskier sobbed against him for a moment, and then tried to pull himself together. “No, you don’t have to let me-- this is embarrassing,” he said, but his whole body was wracked with shudders and he clearly was nowhere near controlling his breathing or anything else at all. 

“I won’t tell anyone if you don’t,” Geralt said, not letting go.

Jaskier didn’t try to speak again, and Geralt held him until he fell asleep, and a little beyond until he was sure he was really out, and then put him into the bed and pulled the blankets up, and went back to the chair to meditate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I know that in Innermost Depths Jaskier and Yennefer speculate that Geralt takes such good care of his teeth because they won't grow back if they fall out but it turns out they're both wrong. They do grow back. Geralt just really hates the way his mouth tastes when he hasn't brushed his teeth.  
> At some point Jaskier might find this out but even if he never does, I couldn't resist mentioning it.
> 
> ____  
>  ~~p.s. This had another like, quarter of a chapter in it, and I wasn't sure there was enough to actually go on with it, so maybe I'll add another chapter to this later and maybe I won't. This is the important thing, this part, and I needed to narrow down what I was working on. So, enjoy.~~ updated: work is finally complete! Thanks for being interested enough to get me to write the rest of this, y'all are the best!
> 
> ______  
> oh my gosh i am surviving. I am surviving! I hope you all are surviving. It has been hard going lately but everything is fine. We are getting through it. It's all going to be okay, except the parts that aren't, but there's not much we can do about the parts that aren't, so. Hang on.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ayy this did get a chapter 2 and will also have a chapter 3! Surprise!
> 
> tw: brief mention of suicide attempt, see end notes for details  
> tw: mind control/hypnosis, see end notes

Jaskier woke very confused extremely early in the morning. Geralt had been meditating in the chair, and had fallen asleep as he sat, so it took him a moment to catch up as well. By then, Jaskier had flailed upright, gotten to his feet, tripped and recovered, and was clinging to the window sash in complete bewilderment. 

“Hnng,” Geralt said, getting his eyes pointed the same direction: it was very early. “Nng. Gmrng.” He swallowed, rubbed his face, and tried again. “Morning.”

Jaskier spun around and stared at him in disbelief. It occurred to Geralt that it might still be too dark for the man to see him, so he used the tiniest _Igni_ to light the lamp on the table. 

“Oh it’s-- where am I,” Jaskier said, blank and confused, tension flowing out of him and leaving him sagging against the window. He blinked, rubbed his face, and shuffled back over to the bed. As he climbed in, he quite clearly realized that he was wearing Geralt’s shirt. 

Geralt said the name of the city, and said, “I found you in the marketplace. You looked sad. I brought you back here to get you some sleep. Your clothes are all at the laundry at the moment, with mine, so you’re in my shirt.”

Jaskier sat in the bed rubbing his face. His hair, a little too long, was sticking up wildly in places, and his face was puffy and swollen, and he looked very young and confused, and smelled very sad. 

“I remember now,” he said quietly, then grimaced. “I made an ass of myself, I am so sorry you had to see that, Geralt.”

“Shh, no,” Geralt said. 

“Ugh, and I’ve stolen your bed,” Jaskier went on, looking around. “Did you sleep in the chair? Geralt! I’m so sorry.”

“I was meditating,” Geralt said.

Jaskier gave him a look. “I know how you come out of meditation and how you are when you were asleep,” he said. 

“Well, I nodded off,” Geralt admitted. “If I’d meant to sleep I’d’ve crawled in there with you, you know that wouldn’t stop me.” He yawned. “You still look awfully peaky, we’d better feed you up today.”

“I’m fine,” Jaskier said. But Geralt could hear his stomach growling. It was probably hunger that had woken him. 

“C’mere,” Geralt said. “Sit. Eat.”

Once Jaskier had eaten, slept a couple more hours, eaten again, and Geralt had gotten their clothing back from the innkeeper, they left town. Geralt had planned on sticking around longer to rest, but he had the supplies he’d wanted, and he didn’t like that Jaskier’s description was in the broadsides. 

They headed out into the countryside, and Geralt found a couple more easy little contracts to do (finding lost items, helping an old woman fix her roof which she thought was cursed but really was just leaking, but it was easier to just fix it and let her believe whatever she wanted, and a weird little bit of detecting that wound up just being someone’s overactive talisman setting off a relative’s allergies-- simple process of elimination, but probably having a Witcher’s nose had helped a lot; most of those, he got paid in baked goods, which was fine), and spent a lot of time collecting flowers and herbs. He set up a little lean-to, where he could dry some of the things he collected, the easier to carry them in powdered form, and took the time to make a nice shelter for them to sleep under, with boughs for bedding to stay out of the damp. Jaskier bore up under sleeping in the woods with better-than-normal humor, surely because he knew it was the safest thing for him. Yes, Geralt had planned on staying in the inn a little longer, but was just as happy to be out here where he could spread out and know no one would mess around with his collections, and it was cheaper this way anyway. That meant Geralt could spend the coin on food Jaskier could actually eat, instead of relying quite so much on rabbits. The baked goods helped, too.

Jaskier wasn’t himself at all, and while Geralt appreciated the peace and quiet, he also thought it was extremely eerie and creepy. He found himself having to carry the conversation, which wasn’t something he was skilled at. A few nights, he was content enough to just let it be silent, but mostly he’d find himself making awkward comments now and then, trying to come up with a topic that would get Jaskier going. 

It wasn’t that Jaskier was stonewalling him. He just genuinely didn’t seem to have enough energy or attention span to do anything but stare wanly into the fire. 

Geralt tried actually giving him details in a few stories, hoping to spark interest. He explained the entire taxonomy of draconids, one evening, including a few of his own experiences to give colorful illustration to it, and Jaskier just made polite noises, nodded a few times, encouraged him to keep talking, but said nothing, and certainly didn’t pull out a notebook to jot things down.

The lute stayed in its case. Geralt wasn’t even sure Jaskier had pen and ink and paper with him, which was extremely uncharacteristic.

By the fifth night, Geralt waited until Jaskier was asleep and went over and did a silver test on him, laying a link of silver chain (warmed in his hand first) against the back of Jaskier’s outflung arm as he slept. He smelled right, but it was possible a curse could fake that. Geralt had been fooled before. 

But no. The silver made no impression, and after a moment Jaskier sighed and pulled his arm in, adjusting his position without waking.

Geralt sat there for a little while, sort of blankly watching the kid sleep, until it struck him that was probably a creepy thing to do, so he retreated to his own bedroll and sat there and brooded for a while. There wasn’t really anything he could do, about any of this. He was mostly done here, though; he’d collected about all the herbs he could, and they were dried down enough that he could package them up to bring home to finish processing over the winter. He’d just about finished all the odd jobs in the area; tomorrow should see it done, if he could get the old man to tell him the truth. And then he’d be ready to move on.

He’d figured he’d leave the bard off somewhere, but if there was nowhere safe for the kid to go-- well, he just didn’t know. Probably, he’d try to get the kid to talk tomorrow, to express some kind of opinion, but. It was really him, and he was really fucked-up about all this, and he didn’t have anywhere to go. 

In the morning, Jaskier woke late and reluctant, which was normal. Geralt was still there, poking at the fire, reheating one of the pastries the old lady with the not-cursed roof had given him. When he heard Jaskier stirring, he stuck the second one on the stick he’d used to cook the first one, and set it to warming. 

“You want to come with me today?” he asked. Jaskier rubbed his face muzzily; he looked like he’d been crying in the night, though Geralt hadn’t heard anything. “It’ll be boring, likely; I just have to get an old man to come clean about an old secret. I’ll tell you if it’s anything good.”

“Mm,” Jaskier said. Geralt handed him the warmed pastry, and he blinked, and came and sat by the fire to eat it. “Thanks.” He yawned, and bit the pastry, and chewed thoughtfully, watching Geralt warm the second one. After a moment he said, quietly, “You’ve been awfully kind to me through all of this.”

Geralt poked at the fire for a moment, rotating the pastry on its forked stick with far more care than it required. At length he sighed, and answered, equally quietly, “I have time for it, at the moment. But.” He tilted his head, first to one side, then the other. “I need to move on, pretty soon. Do you have somewhere you can go, for the winter?”

“I can find somewhere,” Jaskier said. 

“Don’t mind escorting you there,” Geralt said. “Just say where.” He carefully rotated the pastry again. “I was thinking of packing up today, moving along after I’m done with the old man, but if it takes awhile we might spend one more night here and head out in the morning.”

“That would be fine,” Jaskier said. “I’ll-- why don’t I stay behind today, rest up and pack things up.”

“Not much to pack,” Geralt said. “Mostly I just need to grind the herbs that’ve dried down enough to powder yet, and wrap the other ones well so I can work on them later.” He glanced over at Jaskier. “You know a lot of things but I don’t reckon anyone’s taught you herbcraft.”

“Not as such,” Jaskier admitted. 

“Still and all,” Geralt said, “you could rest up.”

“I’ve been doing nothing but resting, I know,” Jaskier said, “but--”

Geralt shook his head, made a gesture to quiet him. “Listen,” he said. “I’ve-- when shit goes wrong it takes a lot out of you, shit like that-- I know about it, kid. You’ve got to give yourself some time.”

Jaskier was quiet a moment, and Geralt glanced over just enough to see that his eyes had welled up again and he was fighting for control. Geralt knew about that too, when you were worn so thin everything was right there under the surface. Someone being nice to you was the sorest of trials, sometimes.

He pulled the pastry off the stick and ate it too hot-- it was rich and well-made if simple, thick with pig lard and a little bit of bacon in the onions and potato in the middle. It was a fantastic breakfast, and he could have eaten all four of the ones the woman had given him, but he’d been parceling them out and sharing them with Jaskier and the kid was looking no less wan, but less sharp-faced for it. Do him good. Geralt didn’t mind supplementing with rabbits when he was out on his own. He had a good stock of hides now too, for his trouble, and if he didn’t sell them, they’d line something and make the winter a bit less bitter. 

“So take some time,” Geralt said. “I should be back-- I’ll aim for midday, but don’t worry if I’m not. You know there’s food in the saddlebags. If you can move Roach a couple times, let her really get a good graze in, that’d help.”

“I’ll do that,” Jaskier said, a bit better composed. 

The old man proved reasonable enough-- annoying to track down, and not terribly willing to talk, but he was findable at all and that was a step up over the usual. Geralt managed to get sincerity to do the trick rather than glowering, and coaxed a reasonable story out of the guy, which turned out to be actually true in a big improvement over Geralt’s expectations. Everything was going far too well, which made him suspicious-- his luck wasn’t this good-- and thus not entirely surprised when he returned to the campsite a little after midday and found that there were tracks leading to it, fresh ones.

Human, several, largeish, probably male, probably armed, faint odor of unwashed skin and even fainter odor of death. Bandits, bounty hunters, something like that. 

_Fuck._

Geralt pulled out the steel sword and ran, silently, the rest of the way, following the ever-stronger scent of those men. Three of them, only. If they were here for Jaskier, then they didn’t seem to know he was traveling with a Witcher. Seemed a dangerous oversight, although, well, it wasn’t like Geralt had been there to protect him today.

He heard a voice, and slowed his pace to approach in complete silence. “-- be daft, lad, we won’t hurt ye,” a stranger was saying, in coaxing tones. “He only wants to know that you’re all right.”

“If that were true,” Jaskier said, scornful, “then you could leave me here and just go and tell him you’d seen me, so I think the fuck not.”

How was Jaskier managing a standoff? Geralt had left a crossbow behind, amid Roach’s baggage, but he didn’t think Jaskier would particularly know how to use it. Maybe he was up a tree, and the bounty hunters-- surely, that was what they were-- were trying to talk him down. He hadn’t demonstrated any particular climbing ability in the time Geralt had known him, but then, he was forever full of surprises. But his voice didn’t sound like he was up high.

Geralt could see the back of at least one of the bounty hunters, now. Big man, hands out, empty, facing away. Another at his right, a few yards away, likewise standing still, no weapons out, though knives in their belts. Third one was out of sight. 

“Come now, boy, you don’t want to hurt yourself,” said the hunter Geralt couldn’t see. “It’s not like you’re a wanted criminal or somewhat. There’s no call for this sort of histrionics.”

“You don’t know what there’s call for,” Jaskier said, a vicious edge to his tone. “It’s not your business to know, or I wager you wouldn’t have this job.”

All three hunters gasped in alarm in unison, the two Geralt could see making visible flinching motions-- starting forward, as if to stop something, and then froze, simultaneously.

“No,” said one of the ones Geralt could see, “ _don’t_ \--”

“I read this correctly, then,” Jaskier said, sounding deadly calm. “You get nothing if I’m dead. I suppose that’s a valuable bit of information.”

“There’s no call for this,” the bandit out of Geralt’s view said. 

Did Jaskier have _himself_ hostage? It sure sounded like it. Geralt stole closer, and brought his hand up; he knew what to do for this sort of thing. He didn’t have to kill these men; better to leave them alive to carry the tale. He pushed an _Axii_ at the closer one, who jerked slightly and then drooped, stupefied, and then stole closer and _Axii_ ’d the other one. Now he could see the third, who was standing at the edge of the clearing where Geralt had situated their campfire for this last week. The man turned and saw him, and his eyes widened briefly, and then Geralt hit him with an _Axii_ square between the eyes and the man blinked and went entirely vacant, standing slouched and motionless where he stood.

Only then did Geralt sheath his steel sword and turn to look at Jaskier, who was sitting with his legs crossed in apparent perfect ease on one of the logs they’d been using as a bench beside the campfire. In one hand he was holding one of Geralt’s big hunting knives, and he had the point of it perfectly placed just under the hinge of his jaw, at the pulse point. But there was no blood, and he was unharmed.

“Jaskier,” Geralt said, sagging in relief just a little bit; he’d been worried there’d already been a struggle. “You’re all right. Fantastic. Don’t worry, in this state they’ll believe anything I tell them. I’ll tell them you weren’t here, and they’ll go back and repeat it. You’re safe now.”

Jaskier hadn’t moved, hadn’t put the knife down. Geralt realized the bard probably didn’t know what _Axii_ was; if he’d even ever seen Geralt cast it before, he wouldn’t have known what it was. “I’ve got a mind-control charm,” he said. “I put it on them. It’s all right.”

Jaskier still didn’t move, and Geralt had a moment of sympathy for how frightened he must have been. And he still might not really understand what Geralt had done. “I’ll send them away,” Geralt said. He put a hand on the first hunter’s shoulder, and said, “He’s not here. You found someone else. You were wrong, he’s not here.”

He shoved the man, and the man stumbled a couple of steps, and then said, “He’s not here,” dully, and then shambled away. Geralt followed, and shoved the other two, repeating it, and they all turned and slowly shambled away after the first one. 

He turned back to Jaskier, a little self-conscious. How did you explain to someone you’d known for years that you had mind-control powers? They were limited, it wasn’t like being a mage, but still. 

Jaskier still had the knife to his own throat, and his hand was shaking visibly, his expression glazed but showing cracks of panic. “Jaskier,” Geralt said, and stepped forward. “It’s all right. It’s all right, you’re safe now.”

“I’m a coward,” Jaskier said, very quietly, eyes wide and unblinking and not quite looking at Geralt. “I’m too afraid to do it.”

“You don’t have to,” Geralt said, closing his eyes for a moment-- he must have been _so_ frightened. He looked like an animal in a trap. “Jaskier, it’s all right.”

“I can’t be what he wants,” Jaskier said, and there were tears in his eyes now and he was shaking. “I can’t be-- but I can’t be myself either, I can’t-- and there’s-- there’s nothing else, my only choice is to just-- _not be_ , at all--”

“Jaskier,” Geralt said, stooping a little to come closer, but Jaskier flinched away from him and Geralt could smell the blood where the knife had just broken the skin, a little bit, right over the artery. He stopped short. “No,” he said, horrified.

“I only ever wanted to be good,” Jaskier said, voice broken into a shattered little rasp, the tears spilling down his face. “I only ever-- but I couldn’t be, I _can’t_ be--”

“Jaskier,” Geralt said. 

The hand with the knife was shaking, and blood was welling from Jaskier’s throat where the point of it was pressed in. “If I can’t be, then I shouldn’t. I can’t live like this. I can’t live like this.”

“Please look at me,” Geralt said, not daring to come a step closer. “Jaskier, _please_ look at me. They’re gone! They won’t come back.”

“They’ll _always_ come back,” Jaskier said. “I can’t-- live like this.” He abruptly scrunched up his face, into a grimace of resolve, and Geralt brought his hand up fast and snapped an _Axii_ at him, too. He hated to use them on anyone he was ever going to talk to again, but he could smell the blood, could see the tension in Jaskier’s arm muscles-- he had been starting to push that knife in, that had been him collecting his courage to finish the job.

As the _Axii_ hit him, Jaskier blinked and went blank, arms falling to his sides, and the hunting knife thudded on the grass. Geralt darted in and picked it up; there was blood on it, Jaskier’s blood, but only a little bit. 

He threw the knife into the bole of a tree to get it out of the way, and grabbed Jaskier up off the log, enfolding him in his arms. “Jaskier,” he said, “you _are_ good, you’re good enough, you’re better than good--”

But he stopped babbling, because in this state, anything he said to the bard would be accepted as something between the truth and a command, and if he told the kid to do anything, he’d do it, and the effects could last. He’d almost said _stay with me_ , and then he’d’ve really been in it. 

Jaskier was both limp and wooden in his arms, eyes half-closed and unfocused, staring blankly straight ahead. Geralt had used _Axii_ to calm agitated survivors on several occasions, this wasn’t that unusual, but they were almost always strangers. 

“You’re safe now,” Geralt said, helplessly, as if he were comforting a panicked monster attack survivor; it was a fine thing to say, it wouldn’t implant any horrible suggestions in Jaskier’s mind, that wouldn’t matter if he were some random peasant because he wouldn’t see Geralt again and have the suggestions resurface.

Geralt had _Axii_ ’d other Witchers many times, for practice or just for general hijinks, and there were never lasting effects; among other shenanigans, he and Eskel had done experiments on each other, and on Lambert and some of the other kids, to see if they could implant suggestions for future actions, but it never took. But Witchers reacted differently to that sort of thing. He’d never have tried it on one of the younger ones who wasn’t mutated yet. And he wouldn’t do it to a human, not for fun, not to find out how it worked. 

“I’m safe now,” Jaskier said hollowly, without any of his normal inflection. His eyes were still staring. 

You could hold an Axii, or you could let it go and it would just last as long as it lasted. Geralt had cast this one, hurriedly, and wasn’t holding to the other end of it, didn’t know how hard he’d pushed it. He didn’t know if he could lift it without it rebounding or something. Safest to let it linger, and then wear off when it would, the way the one on the bounty hunters was, as it guided them back to the village. The aftereffects would last long enough that they’d forget how it had started. 

The aftereffects of this one, then-- well, Geralt didn’t know. And Jaskier had been acting so strangely all week, how would he know the difference? He’d have to be _so_ careful what he said to Jaskier. 

Fuck. 

He knew what it felt like to be _Axii_ ’d, but only as a Witcher; he had no idea what Jaskier would remember, coming out of this. He knew it wouldn’t be enough to realize what had happened to him, but he might know _something_ had happened. Fuck. _Fuck_. 

But he couldn’t have done anything else. Even with his reflexes, he couldn’t have gotten the knife away in time. And he certainly couldn’t have let the kid hurt himself. 

Well, he couldn’t just sit here holding the bard like a baby. That wasn’t going to help anything. He got to his feet, set Jaskier upright, and steadied him. “You’re all right,” he said again, for want of anything else-- he’d almost said _stand there_ or something, and he kept running into the awful realization that if he gave him any commands, Jaskier would do them, and he wanted to keep that to an absolute minimum. 

If he just cast an _Axii_ on someone or something and then didn’t give it any instructions, it would just stand there as if stunned. That was probably the least-bad outcome, here. So he left Jaskier where he was, standing stupidly in the middle of the campsite, wavering slightly on his feet. 

Jaskier had finished packing up his own things and all the camping stuff, at least, Geralt could just wrap up his herbs quickly and work on them later, and Roach was-- he’d moved her to another meadow, Geralt had to track her down by the sounds of chewing. Well, that was okay. Jaskier had chosen a good meadow; he did actually seem to have some knowledge about horses.

Of course he would, if he was a noble’s son, and important enough that the Redanian crown was possibly involved in his retrieval (the embassy had been called out by name in the broadside ad, after all). 

Why he hadn’t simply let the bounty hunters take him, knowing Geralt would come after them, Geralt didn’t know, but there was the grim possibility that either Jaskier was so afraid of the outcome he couldn’t risk Geralt not being able to free him in time, or he simply didn’t understand that of course Geralt would retrieve him. 

The latter was somewhat insulting to consider. But he couldn’t ask Jaskier about it now. 

He finished packing up, and then stood a moment, looking at Jaskier, who was still standing there blankly. Was this a long time for _Axii_ to last? It seemed so. But then… well, on a subject in a susceptible state… 

_Fuck._

They couldn’t stay here. The confusion on the bounty hunters would buy them a little time, but not much. Geralt sighed, and gave Jaskier his first concrete command. “Get on the horse,” he said.

Jaskier had only a moment’s difficulty with the height of the stirrup, but adapted quickly, and got up reasonably competently. But then he just sat there. He was beginning to come around, Geralt thought, but slowly; he was blinking a little more, and moving his head, but not showing much awareness. 

Geralt double-checked the baggage, and then they set off, Jaskier sitting on Roach without the reins, and Geralt leading her. She seemed resigned, and briefly slobbered Geralt’s arm, but made no other sign. 

They ought to avoid roads, Geralt thought, but this bit of woods was somewhat difficult to access. They’d have to take the main road for a distance. He didn’t have a concrete plan, but was figuring on swinging wide around the city and heading vaguely south. 

He didn’t know where they could go. He had a feeling Jaskier would already have gone there if he had a place he knew he’d be safe. He couldn’t bring the kid home; it wasn’t just that Eskel would never let up with the teasing, but Lambert would probably eat the kid alive, and he didn’t much think Jaskier would enjoy a winter in a ruined keep in the mountains. Anyway he’d been trying to keep some distance, not get too close to the kid, and what with this latest development in his long career of slightly self-destructive tendencies, and having _Axii_ ’d him on top of that-- well, Geralt wanted to turn the kid over to somebody who wouldn’t hurt him, not on purpose but not by accident either.

They’d been on the road a little while before Jaskier took a deep breath, like he’d just awoken, and spoke. “Er,” he said, and Geralt blinked himself out of his reverie to look up at him. “I don’t-- ah, why am I riding Roach?”

Of course he didn’t remember. Geralt chewed his lower lip, contemplating that. “What’s the last thing you recollect?” he asked. 

Jaskier shook his head a little. “I, ah,” he said. He shook his head again. “I was packing up the camp? I think I moved Roach’s picket line? I don’t-- the rest of the day is blank.”

“Mm,” Geralt said. _Well, you tried to kill yourself and I mind-controlled you_ , he thought, and dismissed it. Hmm. _Some bounty hunters came for you and…_ No, not that either. 

“Did I-- are you angry with me?” Jaskier asked, as the silence stretched uncomfortably. His voice was low and unsteady. 

“No,” Geralt said. “No, Jaskier, you didn’t-- I’m trying to think how to explain it.” He couldn’t _lie_ to the kid. “I’m not-- sure, I wasn’t here, I came in at the end.”

“At the end,” Jaskier repeated, a little hollowly. 

“Bounty hunters came after you,” Geralt said. “I drove them off. I don’t know how to explain it.” _I mind-controlled you_. No. He shook his head, frustrated.

“Bounty hunters,” Jaskier said, voice sharpening in dread. 

“They won’t be back,” Geralt said. “That part’s all right.”

“What did they do to me?” Jaskier asked. “Why don’t I remember?” 

“That’s the part I’m trying to explain,” Geralt said. “Just-- give me a minute.”

Jaskier shut up abruptly, and Geralt glanced up at him in surprise, and noticed his expression had gone glassy again. _Fuck_ , was he still-- Geralt had no idea if there could possibly be any aftereffects of _Axii_ at this point. 

There were reasons old Andrey had been so stern with them about using it, had drilled it into them never to use it for selfish reasons-- never use it to get out of paying a bill, absolutely _never_ use it to get someone to fuck you-- never use it on anyone you wouldn’t kill, more or less-- and a lot of those principles had fallen by the wayside in the eighty-five years it had been since Geralt had been under Andrey’s tutelage, but they all came back to him now. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Jaskier,” Geralt said, pained. But as he said it, he could hear how unconvincing it sounded. He was groping for a way to fix this, to explain once and for all what he meant, when he heard voices.

He halted Roach, and held up a hand, tilting his head to listen and to scent the air at the same time. Humans. Horses. Voices raised, or at least one voice raised-- an argument? A scuffle, perhaps. Not a peaceful situation.

Investigate, or avoid? It wasn’t on the road, quite-- in the woods, a little distance from the road, not far. A chance they could slip past, but-- no, best to see what was afoot. Geralt turned to Jaskier, about to tell him to keep out of sight, but then he considered the wisdom of giving Jaskier any kind of command at the moment. 

Geralt sighed, composed himself, and said, “Jaskier, I think I hear some people having a quarrel. I think I’m going to leave you with Roach while I investigate, find out if it’s trouble or not. That sound good?”

Jaskier regarded him warily. “I,” he said, clearly suspicious. Well, Geralt was uncomfortably aware he didn’t usually keep Jaskier this informed, or treat him so gently. “All right?” 

“I’ll be back soon,” Geralt said. He led Roach off the road a little ways, then pulled the reins over her head and gave them to Jaskier. Jaskier took them, and watched him go, quiet and worried. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW Suicide: Jaskier, in panic and desperation, threatens to and then attempts to stab himself to escape a situation he believes to be life or death, but is stopped before he can injure himself.  
> TW Mind Control: Geralt uses the Axii sign, which allows the wielder to mentally control the target, first to convince some bounty hunters that they're in the wrong place, and then to stop Jaskier from hurting himself.
> 
> I love you all, stay safe.  
> I've got two more weeks staying safe in isolation and then I'm going to go help on the farm. No word yet about my dayjob. Who even knows. Who even knows what's happening or what's the right thing to do! All we can do is try it, right?


	3. Chapter 3

Geralt prowled through the woods and wasn’t entirely surprised to discover that there were some bandits or bounty hunters or something of that sort in the woods, with a young somewhat-foppish nobleman they’d clearly kidnapped or accosted or something. 

Was this related to Jaskier, or was that just a current fad, around here? 

The young man was stocky-built, dark-skinned, his hair a semi-groomed mop of tight curls and his features almost a caricature of bookishness. “I told you,” he was saying, “I don’t _know_ where he is.”

“The letters you’re carrying seem to imply you know him well,” the bandit leader said, sneering a little; he had a handful of papers, all unfolded, and was leafing through them. 

“I know _him_ ,” the youth said. “I don’t know where he _is._ Those are two entirely separate things.”

“And yet,” the bandit said, pausing to look up at the young man’s face, “here we are.”

There were only three of them. One had a crossbow, but so did Geralt (he’d retrieved it from Roach, and had it now). One had a longsword, the other two just had knives and blackjacks. None of them had armor or shields. There were four horses here, and one of them was clearly the young man’s. The young man was either a low noble or a student of some kind, from his horse’s shabby-genteel tack and inexpensive appearance. 

Geralt couldn’t easily do the same thing he’d done to Jaskier’s attackers; these guys were all in eyeshot of each other, and were exchanging looks pretty frequently. And it wasn’t impossible that this was all about something else entirely. But Geralt didn’t believe much in coincidences, so he wasn’t going to walk away just yet.

“Some of these are love letters,” one of the other bandits said. He had more letters, Geralt realized. “This one sounds fancy. I bet this one’s from a noblewoman. _My dearest sweet buttercup, I have heard of your troubles,”_ he read, affecting a high voice to represent the woman’s speech. 

“Any juicy stuff in it?” asked the first bandit, chuckling.

“Stop that,” the youth said weakly, “that’s private correspondence. She’ll be so angry with me that the seal’s broken.”

“You’re an optimist,” the first bandit told him. To the one who’d been reading, he said, “Go on, is there anything juicy in there?”

“You’re making a big mistake,” the youth said, despairing. “I know you’re after him for the reward but his father paid me to find him, too, and if he finds out you’ve interfered, he won’t give you the reward.” He had the same accent Jaskier did, when the bard was at his most distracted-- a very posh Redanian accent, the kind that sounded almost like the speaker was gargling marbles and couldn’t be bothered to snap out the consonants clearly. 

“How’s he gonna find out we interfered, boy?” the reading bandit said.

“I told him, he’s an optimist,” the first bandit put in.

Geralt had long experience at hunting, and was prepared to wait until he heard a definitive name mentioned, or until someone was going to be irrevocably harmed. This served him well, because as he waited, he picked up a faint additional scent. 

Another person, hint of sweat, metallic scent like chainmail or armoring of some kind, smell of uncured leather-- a hunter, or tracker, or someone of that sort. Also prowling around this clearing, only not quite so still as Geralt, and also taking no care to stay downwind. 

Well, to be fair, taking no care to stay downwind of _Geralt_ , whose presence he’d have no reason to suspect. Geralt was downwind of everyone out of an abundance of caution and long, long habit.

Either every bounty hunter in three kingdoms was here, or there was a somewhat more complex situation going on than any of the players, excepting possibly Geralt, understood. So Geralt silently stole a little farther back into the woods, where he had to rely on his hearing to follow the events unfolding, and waited.

The bandits grew tired of speaking, and began to interrogate their captive more sharply. “You know where he is!” one said. “You know he’s nearby!”

“I’m following the same rumors you probably are,” the youth said. And then there was a thud, and he made a sharp sound of pain and shock. Probably only a blow, likely to his face, no broken bones, but Geralt could smell blood now. 

“If that’s true,” a bandit said, “then we don’t need you, and can just kill you.”

There was a ring, of steel clearing a leather sheath, and Geralt made himself wait. He could still smell that other hunter, could hear his footsteps; he was moving carefully, quietly, but his silence was no match for Geralt’s hearing. And then Geralt heard, unmistakably, the soft snick of a long sword clearing a leather sheath.

The young man was babbling, pleading-- predictable noises. A less predictable, but not entirely unexpected, noise, was one of the bandits making the distinctive horrible sound of a man who’s just received a sucking chest wound. 

Geralt used the noises of the combat that ensued to move back to a position where he could get some of the participants in eyeshot. The hunter had stepped in and killed two of the bandits, and was tangling with the third who’d had a chance to draw a knife in defense-- the hunter had a sword and a hood and heavy gauntlets, but that was about all Geralt could see of him. In another instant, he despatched the third bandit, and then astonishingly enough, he walked away, leaving the scene of the fight.

Hmm. Geralt rather thought he knew what was going on.

The young man uncurled himself slowly, looking about in astonishment-- he’d fallen to the ground, probably when the bandit had drawn his sword, and had hidden his face for most of the proceedings. “What,” he said aloud, looking at the dead bandit in front of him, who was still twitching. He scrambled to his feet, looking around, and startled visibly when he saw each of the other two dead bandits. 

But in a moment he moved to frantically gather up the scattered papers that were the opened correspondence, clutching it to his chest. “I don’t understand,” he said out loud, “I don’t understand what just--” He held the papers to his chest and kept whirling around to look everywhere, near panic. “Who’s out there?” he called out, breaking into tears of bewildered panic. “Who did this?”

The hunter wasn’t gone. Geralt could still smell him, and the more easily for the sharp fresh blood on his weapon. He’d gone off into a thicket to tidy himself up. But he’d taken no loot, and had taken care not to be seen-- Geralt hadn’t seen him clearly but he’d gotten a glimpse and knew the man had a hood on, pulled low.

He’d been tailing the young man, unbeknownst to the youth in question, and was clearly taking some care not to let the youth see him. The youth who’d admitted he was being paid to find… probably Jaskier. 

Geralt would wager a fair sum that the youth really was a friend of Jaskier’s. Jaskier’s father had likely offered him money to take messages to the missing bard, and the friend-- well, it was even possible the friend had taken the money and had every intention of not actually turning Jaskier in at all. And the father had known that, and had set a tail on him, because it was likely someone that knew him so well would succeed at finding him. 

And the youth still didn’t know this person was tailing him, and wouldn’t, until he finally found Jaskier and had a lovely reunion with him. 

The true test of this theorem was to ascertain whether this youth actually knew Jaskier. But this hunter… he was no slouch. No match for Geralt, likely, but he also would certainly twig to who and what Geralt was as soon as he saw him. 

The thing to do was to talk to Jaskier. It would be wrong to set a trap using Jaskier without the kid’s knowledge. He backed carefully away, feeling a little bad for the young man who was still in a panic trying to gather up his things. Carefully keeping himself downwind of the hunter, who had settled in to watch the young man, Geralt slipped away back to where he’d left Jaskier and Roach.

“Do you know a young dark-skinned man with fluffy hair and a hawk nose, kinda long face,” Geralt said, and Jaskier, who’d dismounted and was sitting next to Roach and looking tired in the thicket where he’d been left, startled slightly. “Useless in a fight, posh Redanian accent, carrying some letters, apparently looking for someone out here.”

“Long face,” Jaskier said, “useless in a fight-- short and sort of stocky?”

“Could be,” Geralt said. “Generally grubby, looked like a student, about your age, shabby overdyed black doublet with some bits of embroidery, didn’t get a good look at the rest of him.”

“Nerio,” Jaskier said, “probably,” and then his face lit up. “Nerio? He’s here?”

“Long story,” Geralt said. “Some bounty hunters had him, were reading letters he was carrying-- one of them was addressed to a _my dear sweet buttercup_ , which is why I thought this might be related to you--”

“Anna,” Jaskier said, face going pale. He stood up.

“Right,” Geralt said, “well, the seal’s broken and there might be blood on it but I think he managed to retrieve that.”

“You killed the bounty hunters?” Jaskier asked. “But then-- where’s Alessandro?”

“I didn’t kill anybody,” Geralt said. “Someone else is trying very hard not to let Nerio know he’s following him. One more tidbit: as the bounty hunters were interrogating Nerio, he protested that he’s being paid by your father to find you, too.”

Jaskier went still, and his face went carefully blank as he thought about that. “He would,” he said quietly, looking down at his hands. “He would take money from my father. He’d think he was doing the right thing.”

“It seems to me, I think,” Geralt said, “that your father thought Nerio had a good chance of finding you, but also that Nerio wouldn’t be willing to bring you in against your will.”

“He… wouldn’t,” Jaskier said, “but he might try to trick me. I-- we’re friends, but.”

“I don’t doubt he’d do it out of good intentions,” Geralt said, as soothing as he could manage to be. “But your father seems to have assumed he wouldn’t go against you at all, and so has very clearly sent someone to follow Nerio, so that once he succeeds in finding you, as he very nearly has, this second person can then intervene and take you back by force.”

Jaskier stared at Geralt for a moment, pale and nervous as he looked a lot nowadays. But he wasn’t glassy-eyed anymore, which was a blessed relief. Fuck, Geralt still had to explain all that. But there was already a lot to explain at the moment. “So what do we do?” Jaskier asked. “Is-- is Nerio safe? What happened to him? Where is he? Who is this other person?”

“I left Nerio back there in the woods, with three dead bandits I didn’t kill, and whoever killed them waiting on the other side of the thicket,” Geralt said. “Nerio was unharmed but panicked. Neither of them saw me.”

“Oh,” Jaskier said. “How could-- how did this person kill three bandits without Nerio seeing him?”

“Well,” Geralt said, “firstly, Nerio was cowering on the ground, but secondly, well. He was extremely fast.”

Jaskier stared at Geralt, wide-eyed. “A Witcher?”

“There are people who are fast without being Witchers,” Geralt said, a little surprised at the conclusion. Although, Jaskier had a point; what conventional human was that fast? He frowned. “He didn’t smell like a Witcher.”

“Witchers have a smell?” Jaskier said, and then, more like his old self than at all lately, discarded it and said, “Of course you’d know that. Well, what else could he be?”

Geralt considered it, discarded several possibilities, and moved on. “The point is,” he said. “How should we proceed?”

“We shouldn’t leave poor Nerio wandering around the woods on his own,” Jaskier said, decisive and like his old self for just a moment. “Even if my dad got to him, he’s a decent fellow and I’m certain he came out of concern for me, first.”

“So,” Geralt said. “I was thinking of making it seem like you were alone out here, and sending you by yourself to encounter Nerio, and I would watch and see what this other person does.”

“What if,” Jaskier said, but hesitated. 

Geralt had to say it, then. “Jaskier,” he said. “You know I’d come for you. I believe you, that to be dragged back to your father would kill you. I understand this is life and death for you. You don’t think I’d let them take you? You don’t think I wouldn’t track you down wherever they took you, and get you free?”

Jaskier stared at him. “You,” he said. “You--” He collected himself. “Of course,” he said. “Of-- of course I, I know that.” He looked away for a moment. 

Of course he did not, because he’d-- Geralt stopped the train of thought. Reminding Jaskier of what he didn’t remember wasn’t going to help him stay calm enough to handle this. “I _will_ , Jaskier,” Geralt said. “So if whoever is hoping to use Nerio as bait to catch you comes out to get you, I’ll be able to find out who they are.”

“What if they’re stronger than you are,” Jaskier said quietly, not looking at him. “What if it is another Witcher?”

“Then I’ll be at the advantage, because he won’t know about me,” Geralt said. “But I’ll know about him.”

Jaskier considered that a moment, eyes flicking over to meet Geralt’s. Geralt always forgot how blue Jaskier’s eyes were, until moments like this. “All right,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

They took enough of Jaskier’s luggage off of Roach to make it seem credible. If it _was_ another Witcher, Geralt couldn’t help but worry he’d be able to smell Geralt on Jaskier. But Geralt had smelled the man directly without recognizing anything in his scent. And anyone so careless about being upwind couldn’t be a scent-hunter.

It was a while since Geralt had tangled with anyone who could present him much of a challenge on these terms. It wouldn’t do to get arrogant with Jaskier’s life on the line. But there wasn’t really a safer option. 

Jaskier stood a moment as he meant to set out, on foot, lightly laden, all of his most precious things stowed on Roach-- most of his baggage was spare food and a bedroll, with just a few changes of clothes. He dithered visibly over the lute, and Geralt said, “Leave it, they won’t need it to identify you,” because he was not willing to deal with a possibly-broken lute in this rescue. 

He nodded briefly to Jaskier as the bard stepped out of sight and made for the road, and then circled wide to approach the whole site from downwind. He could still smell the fresh-blood shit-guts smell of the dead bounty hunters, and Nerio had made it back to the road, still shaky and panicked but moving along, with his shabby horse in tow. Interestingly, he had not taken any of the dead hunters’ horses. But Geralt had to keep out of sight, and couldn’t tell any more details, like whether the young man had looted the bodies or done more than recover what of his correspondence was easy to lay hands upon.

Jaskier was out of sight but audible as he stopped short and said, “Alessandro?”

“Jaskier!” the young man from before said, and burst into tears. “Jaskier-- we have to run-- there are bounty hunters--”

“Where,” Jaskier said. Then, “Sandro! You’re all blood! What’s happened!”

“There were,” Nerio said, “there-- it was-- no time, Jaskier, we have to-- someone’s in the woods-- I don’t know--”

“Easy, easy,” Jaskier said, “Sandro-- come on, let’s get off the road, tell me what’s going on.” 

“There’s no,” Nerio said, “we can’t stop, I don’t-- there’s something in the woods.”

“Calm,” Jaskier said, “you have to calm down, and tell me what’s happening. Are you injured? Are you all right? How came you here? Whose blood is this?”

Jaskier led Nerio off the road, with the horse, into a little copse. He’d chosen the correct side of the road, at least, to let Geralt stay close, but Geralt had to awkwardly retreat a little distance. He braced himself, still as a stone, against a tree downwind, and kept his nose sharp. It was a good day for scenting, humid but not raining, with a light predictable breeze, and the wind was still bringing him blood and horses and a distant campfire.

“I set out to find you,” Nerio said. “I heard-- I heard your father tried to nab you, again, like before, and I remember how bad that was, and I thought, I’d better find him first, you know? So I lit out to where I thought you might go, and I asked around, and it seemed maybe you’d come out this way, so I came too. I have letters-- Anna wrote you, and old man Farnad, and the lads at Uxter hall, that crew, they’d wanted to send you a note--”

“Did they,” Jaskier said quietly, gently.

“I still have them,” and Nerio burst into tears. “But the seals are all broken-- Jaskier, just now, some bounty hunters caught up with me, and I hadn’t really-- but of course your old man’s got adverts in the broadsides, and all kinds of scum are out after you now.”

“I’m aware,” Jaskier said drily, and Geralt wondered how much he remembered, guiltily. 

“The hunters caught me and searched my bags and took all the letters and tore them open-- here they are, I’m so sorry Jaskier, they just broke all the seals--”

“It’s all right, Sandro,” Jaskier said, “I understand. What happened?”

“Oh,” Nerio said. “Well, they had me dead to rights and they were about to start torturing me-- one of them hit me, and then he drew his sword and I thought I was dead so I fell down and covered my face, you know?” 

“As one would,” Jaskier said, though Geralt had watched Jaskier react with inappropriate equanimity to similar threats. Possibly he’d just dealt with too much to remember how to react, anymore. 

“Well, and there I was with my face covered, and suddenly there’s-- these awful noises,” Nerio said. “Like, fighting noises? A horrible gurgle? I curl up even tighter because this sounds terrible, and only after a moment does it occur to me that nobody’s hitting me, so I finally look up and--” 

A pause. “And what?” Jaskier said.

“Well,” Nerio said. “They were all dead! Every one of them had been killed!”

“With magic?” Jaskier asked. “With a sword? With arrows? With a sudden fit of remorse?”

Geralt stifled an amused snort, managed to make no sound. He wasn’t picking up any sound or scent of the other person, the one stalking Nerio, and he didn’t like that. Anyone who could hide from him-- anyone who even knew they had to hide from him-- was dangerous. But it was premature to be concerned. 

“Ah, sword I think,” Nerio said. “I mean-- blood, everywhere, big bloody rents in their chests, awful gurgling sort of… situations--” 

“But you were unhurt,” Jaskier filled in. 

“Oh,” Nerio said. “I-- I think so. It’s-- this isn’t my blood. I had to--” He sobbed. “Jaskier, I had to loot the bodies, they’d taken my things and I had to get them back. Your letters, all my money, all my food--”

“It’s all right,” Jaskier said. “Oh, Sandro, let’s get you cleaned up. But you’re right, we’ve got to keep moving. Let’s hurry and get you cleaned up.”

Geralt settled into an absolute hunting stillness, fetched up between a pair of trees, nose to the wind and ears attuned. A fox went by, picking its delicate way with a quiet occasional crackle of dried leaves, betrayed mostly by its scent-- foxes were crepuscular, and it was only late afternoon yet, not evening. Why was the fox stirring? That was worth attention.

“--wish we had time to heat water, but we don’t. There. There, that’s got your hands clean,” Jaskier was saying. 

“Oh but,” Nerio said. “You’re-- there’s blood on your collar, Jaskier, are-- oh, I haven’t even asked, how are you?”

“I’m all right,” Jaskier said. “I-- blood? How fresh?”

“Your neck is--” Ah, it was where he’d cut himself, with the knife. Geralt cringed inwardly, and resumed his contemplation of the problem of the fox. It was possible Jaskier and Nerio themselves had disturbed the fox, who crept past without taking note of Geralt. It got a little ways downwind, however, and paused, as a breeze came by, and then it suddenly dashed off-- it had scented Geralt, most likely. 

Foxes and wolves weren’t friends.

Ironically enough, while Geralt had killed more wolves than he could count, he’d never killed a fox, had he? He devoted a tiny percentage of his thinking to trying to remember. He’d had fox-fur things, but he didn’t think he’d killed a fox himself. 

Meanwhile, Jaskier and Nerio had finished mutually cleaning one another up, and Jaskier was redistributing their baggage onto the horse, and they were making plans where to go. The city he’d been in with Geralt was right out, Jaskier said, not mentioning Geralt, and when Nerio asked him if he’d had any other trouble with bounty hunters, Jaskier hesitated for a long moment. 

“I… had a run-in,” he said vaguely. “Let’s call it a narrow escape. I’m aware they’re after me.”

“Thank the gods,” Nerio said. 

“What?” Jaskier paused, tone slightly sharper.

“Oh,” Nerio said, “I’ve been worried that I’d lead them down on you. I didn’t think anyone would follow me, who would even know who I was? Who’d assume I knew where to go? But--”

Still sharp, Jaskier said, “Where did you leave from?”

“Ah,” Nerio said. “I-- just now?”

“No,” Jaskier said. “Did you leave from Oxenfurt?”

“Well,” Nerio said. “I mean, I started there.”

“Did you go to Redania?” Jaskier asked. 

“I,” Nerio said. “Oh, yes, I stopped home.”

Jaskier’s voice went slightly strained. “Did you stop by Lettenhove?”

There was a pause. “We shouldn’t stand here and discuss this,” Nerio said, scent subtly shifting from fear to nervousness. Evasive little shit.

“Did you?” Jaskier demanded. Geralt didn’t know exactly where Lettenhove was but it rang a faint bell. Some little something in Redania probably. 

“I,” Nerio said, then, defeated, “yes, Jaskier. I did. I talked to the old man. He really is dying.”

“Good,” Jaskier said savagely. Then, “What did he give you? To bring me back? Did he pay you up front?”

“It’s not like that,” Nerio said. “Julek!”

Geralt winced at the sound of Jaskier’s intake of breath-- it sounded pained. “ _You don’t call me that_ ,” Jaskier said, ice cold as Geralt had never heard him sound before. “How-- get-- give me my letters and go! How fucking _dare_ you!”

“Jaskier,” Nerio said. “Jaskier, I-- please!”

“You _know_ what he’ll do to me,” Jaskier said. It almost sounded like he didn’t remember Geralt was there. Maybe he didn’t. This was engrossing. “You know what he wants. You know this isn’t a sentimental wish to see me one last time. You know what he _has_ done to me, this is not me being _dramatic_ and making it up.”

“I do, I do,” Nerio said, “I _do_ know, which is why I took his money with no intention of bringing you in return! I just needed to be able to buy supplies, Jaskier, you know that, my stipend is _nothing_ , how was I to get all the way out here without--”

“He has ways of protecting his investments,” Jaskier said. “Don’t you think he gave you something that he’s having magically tracked?”

“He did,” Nerio said stoutly. “I took it directly to the Countess, she has it there. While I was still there she had to fend off an importuning messenger from him already, and you know she outranks him so she can turn him away with impunity. She mentions it in her letter, or she said she did-- it’s this one.”

There was a moment, soft noises-- shuffling of paper, people moving. Geralt listened. Birds were singing as normal, none quite nearby because of the two men arguing in the copse. There was no scent besides the horse and the two men. He could even smell that Jaskier was genuinely upset. 

_Focus, Geralt_ , he thought. Was there an absence in the birdsong larger than the two men could account for? If this hunter was present, he could be doing as Geralt was, and keeping still. The way to flush him out was for Jaskier to move, but Jaskier was probably thinking he should delay where he was as long as possible.

No matter. Geralt could outwait this other hunter. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _ah i've relocated to my sister's organic farm and am now doing Farm Stuff for many hours a day so it's hard to get updates out. but. here is a slightly short chapter. Stay safe, friends! I had to do slaughterhouse work in a horridly stifling mask yesterday but it is nice to feel useful. Support your local farmers!_

Axel had invested more than two weeks into this contract already. Sure, he’d been able to do a couple of other little contracts around here and there, but the necessity of keeping tabs on the eggheaded little idiot he was following had made it a little tricky to get much done. Getting paid partially up front had helped, but he was still skeptical about whether this was going to work out correctly, and sort of regretting taking the contract.

He’d had to take out other bounty hunters before now, though he’d mostly been able to redirect them. This trio had been unfortunate in that he was out of patience and also out of time. If they hadn’t actually meant to torture the kid, he could’ve found a way to work around it and not kill them, but. Once they’d drawn blood he didn’t really feel that bad anymore about killing them.

It turned out, following the little idiot for two weeks had made Axel simultaneously sick of him and weirdly fond of him. Sandro, for so he called himself when he spoke to himself, spoke to himself often and at length, and often in quite entertaining little rants. He was an academic of some sort, which-- well, Axel had always sort of idly wished he could go to a university, could study things besides monsters and how to kill things and how to make potions to more efficiently kill things, so he was predisposed to find academic rantings more charming than some, probably.

But the payoff was approaching, and with it, the revelation, potentially, of just what the complication could possibly be that he’d been so sure was coming by the sheer steepness of the price the old man had offered.

Because, sure enough, Sandro had indeed run into a friend in the road, and from Axel’s distant viewpoint, it was potentially their target after all-- young man, sombrely dressed like maybe he’d read the broadside notice pointing out that he tended to dress flamboyantly, looking much the worse for wear-- Axel couldn’t see more at this distance, but he could hear.

And what he heard was Sandro calling the young man Jaskier.

The old man had, of course, referred to the young man by his name, something polysyllabic and noble and multi-part. But Sandro had, consistently, been muttering something much shorter, two syllables. And when he’d finally met him, he’d called it out more clearly, and it had sounded awfully familiar.

As he’d been carefully following the young men’s reunion from just out of human earshot, Axel had been sifting through his memory to try and remember where he had heard of a Jaskier before. It was a ridiculous name for a grown man, but he’d heard it before.

And now, as the two men had an emotional reunion (sounded like this Jaskier was no naive fool, as his father had painted him to be-- he’d sussed immediately that Sandro had been paid to find him), Axel’s memory came up with where he’d heard of Jaskier before.

Jaskier the bard. The kid who’d written _Toss A Coin To Your Witcher_.

The bard who had a pet Witcher, and not just any Witcher, but that Wolf School freak Geralt, who was marked by Destiny if ever anyone had been. Axel had only met him briefly and in passing, but one of his brothers was pretty involved with another Wolf school fellow, and from their incessant chatter he’d picked up on plenty of information about this goddamned Geralt of Fucking Rivia.

Quite apart from Destiny, the Wolf school also had the great misfortune of having been largely wiped out, and the few survivors were all _batty_. Aiden’s friend Lambert was an utter bastard, hypervigilant even for a Witcher and vicious to boot-- which begged the question of what Aiden, who was a wholly decent sort of fellow, could possibly find so entertaining about him, but that wasn’t the point of this little rumination.

The point was, there was no fucking amount of coin in the _world_ that would induce Axel to interfere with the White Wolf’s pet bard.

And yet. He’d devoted two weeks to this stupid contract. Almost three. And he wasn’t being asked to _kill_ little Julian Albert or whatever his real name was.

Axel edged closer, scenting the air intently. He knew his own sense of smell was no match for a Wolf. He’d have better dark vision, he’d be faster, but he knew just from messing around with Lambert that he hadn’t a chance against a Wolf nose.

Ah, shit, and the wind was against him, here. He hadn’t considered it because he knew humans couldn’t smell worth a damn, but from here he couldn’t even get a whiff of the bard, let alone if anyone was watching him.

The bard _looked_ like he was traveling alone, but if the Wolf had smelled the blood from the bandits-- Axel cursed silently to himself. Likely he was being paranoid, and the kid really was out here by himself, and all of this was ridiculous. He’d planned all along just to swoop in immediately once Sandro found the kid, and bring them both back to Lettenhove. But that had been before he’d known this was the _Toss A Coin_ kid.

The old man was a _fucker_ for not mentioning that. He could see not wanting to acknowledge that the kid had any achievements on his own merits, but that was some germane fucking information for another Witcher taking a contract.

And Axel had spent almost three weeks on this fucking contract, now that he tallied it up. The sensible thing to do was cut and run, and go back to the old man and berate him for not telling the whole story. But that wouldn’t wring any more money out of him, and Axel’d still be out the balance of the reward.

And it wasn’t like he was supposed to _kill_ this kid. Just inconvenience him. Maybe it’d work out, maybe he could actually reconcile with the old shithead. Maybe Axel’d be doing him a favor.

But it was, on the face of it and at the heart of it, utterly ridiculous for Axel to be prowling around the woods trying to hunt a Wolf by scent. Because if the man wasn’t right there with the bard, then he knew Axel was following Sandro, and that was that.

(Unless, of course, he wasn’t here at all.)

A further level of unfairness was that while there were potions to increase one’s visual acuity in the dark, there were no potions to improve one’s sense of smell. Either one had the neurons for it, or one did not, and Axel, while he could out-scent circles around any human, only had so many, even if he really took it in, tasted the air with his mouth open, made the most of it-- no matter what, he was no Wolf, and that was that.

And if the Wolf knew he was there, the Wolf wasn’t going to move. He was going to set himself up somewhere to watch the trap, which was these two young men standing like idiots in a clearing barely off the road, and while it was within reason that Sandro might not know he was being an idiot waiting there for so long freshly out of escaping a crew of bounty hunters, if Jaskier had traveled with a Witcher for any length of time then _he_ had to know how stupid they were being, which was a telltale that he _wasn’t_ being stupid. He was being canny and waiting to spring a trap.

No way was Axel going to spring that trap. He was a Cat, and something Cats could do was hunt, and something hunters knew was that sometimes you just had to wait, and stalk, and wait longer. He wasn’t going to leap into the jaws of a Wolf. If there was no Wolf, then this was fine as well; he’d spent almost three weeks on this and could spend a little longer. But if there was a Wolf, he was going to outwait him.

Wolves were predators. Cats were both predators and prey: valor without caution was just stupidity. Which was why there were a great deal many more Cat witchers in the world now than Wolf.

Axel lasted a night and a day before he got stupid. It was so fucking nerve-wracking, following the young men at a cautious distance, trying desperately to catch any scent as the air shifted-- he thought he smelled Wolf once, in a cross-breeze, but it was so tangled up in the bard’s scent he couldn’t be sure. In the moment, he took it as confirmation that the bard and the Wolf had been traveling together, that maybe the bard was wearing a shirt of the Wolf’s or something, or had some of the Witcher’s belongings in his pack, or maybe had washed their clothes together-- but once the scent was gone and Axel was left trying to mentally sift through all the tastes in memory, he couldn’t be sure. Not sure enough to abandon his expensive pursuit. He spent the day wrangling his own horse and the bandit’s horse that he’d salvaged to be a pack animal-- be easier to get wee Julian home tied up on a packhorse, he’d reasoned, and now he was wondering if that had been smart. Well, at least he could sell the beast and get something out of all this.

But that wasn’t much, and in the meantime he had to see to both horses and get them decent forage before he could go see that nothing attacked the young men’s campsite overnight and then see which way they headed in the morning and then go retrieve the horses.

So, as he crept a wide circuit around the young men’s campsite that night, he was too tired to talk himself out of doing something rash.

Sandro had been monologuing for a little while, as Axel was more or less used to and had been tuning out as he crept around searching with increasing desperation for the slightest hint of a Wolf. But there was a note in it that Axel wasn’t used to, of a kind of edgy desperation, like a bard having a bad set trying to wheedle a reaction out of the crowd. Clearly, Sandro had been expecting Jaskier to chime in, to take over perhaps, or at least to participate in the conversation. And instead Jaskier was answering in monosyllables, if at all.

Eventually the strain of creeping around and listening to Sandro’s distress and awkwardness got to be too much for Axel. He stood for a long few moments just outside the circle of light from the campfire, just beyond where a human could make him out, arguing with himself. Having found no trace of a Wolf was meaningless; the man could be standing directly behind him, the way the wind was here. In the city, he’d have a Wolf, no trouble at all; anywhere there were traces of humans, he’d have the advantage. Cats were adapted to civilization; Axel was a city Witcher. But out here in the woods, with nary even a ruin about-- well, that was Wolf hunting ground.

Axel turned and looked behind himself, having made his own skin crawl imagining the White Wolf creeping up behind him. But the woods were dark and silent, with only the rustles of prey and predators going about their night business. No monsters, no Witchers, no disturbance, only the scent of a fox somewhere to windward, the silent disturbance to the air’s currents of an owl’s soundless wings across the clearing as it hunted. The too-high-for-humans shrieking of a mouse, as the owl caught it, and the sudden cessation of the mouse’s shriek.

When Axel turned back, Jaskier had glanced up from the fire-- maybe he’d heard the mouse after all-- and in a moment, the bard’s gaze turned back and caught directly on Axel.

Fuck.

His eyes, in the firelight.

But the bard didn’t react immediately, just at there staring at him, and eventually raised an eyebrow. Sandro’s desultory, now-fractured monologue had stuttered to a halt some moments before, and now he poked at the fire.

Jaskier spoke. “So you _are_ a Witcher,” he said.

Fuck.

“What?” Sandro said. “No, I’m not. What’s gotten into you?”

“The man following you,” Jaskier said, breaking eye contact with Axel only to roll his eyes. “You don’t think my father would be so stupid as to trust to only you and a single, easily-discarded magical token?”

“What?” Sandro looked up, and looked around in sudden panic. “What?”

“The eyeshine,” Jaskier said, and pointed unerringly straight at Axel. “I know it’s not Geralt, his is yellowish. This is bright fucking green, so it’s someone else. You can come out, you know. I won’t run away, I know how futile that would be.”

Well, he’d been asking for that, really. Axel sighed, climbed over the undergrowth, stepped into the firelight, and immediately dropped to a crouch, maybe to be a little less threatening, really to have a conversation more easily with the seated young men. “The old man didn’t tell me who you were,” he said.

Sandro yelped in terror and scrabbled to his feet. Jaskier caught his arm and pulled him back down. “Come now,” Jaskier said, “Sandro, don’t be dramatic. Of course you were followed, and I’m not even annoyed with you for not noticing. This is a Witcher, you’d never have known he was there if he didn’t want you to know.”

“A Witcher,” Sandro said. “What, like-- like your White Wolf?”

“Well, it’s fairly obvious this isn’t him,” Jaskier said. “No offense, of course, friend, but nobody would call you a _white_ anything.” There was a reason Axel hadn’t worried about his skin catching the firelight, to put it mildly; he was of an excellent coloration for night-hunting. “And that medallion is certainly not a wolf, though I’m not sure what animal it does represent. If you know who I am, you could introduce yourself, to be polite.”

He sounded so calm and icily composed: his Wolf was _certainly_ nearby if he was so calm, but it was too late to run. Should’ve waited until they hit a city, to level the advantages, but too late now.

“Axel,” he said, “of the School of the Cat. I assume your Wolf is waiting nearby, and so perhaps I should address my apology to him instead?”

“I assure you,” Jaskier said, “ _I_ am a more receptive audience to apologies that are due to _me_ , thank you very much.”

“Well,” Axel said. “Then I apologize, because the old man told me only the name he gave you, and never once hinted that you were the _Toss A Coin_ kid.”

Jaskier’s teeth showed as he laughed at that. “ _Toss a Coin_ kid,” he said, “I like that. Tell me, do _you_ like the song?”

“I _love_ the song,” Axel said. “Useful, and also catchy.” He whistled a bit of it, the chorus, as cheerfully as he could manage.

Jaskier laughed again. “Geralt’s been so grumpy about it. Always acts so put-upon. All the songs about him, he acts like they’re terrible impositions upon him.”

“Geralt’s a fucking nutter,” Axel said.

“You know him?” Jaskier asked, eyes glittering with a predatory sort of interest.

“Mostly by reputation,” Axel said. “There’s a Wolf that hangs with us a fair bit, has told us more than a few tidbits about the fellow.” He shook his head. “I only met him once but that’s enough. I wouldn’t mess with him, he’s off his rocker and Destiny’s got him marked to boot. And I won’t mess with his bard. I’ve wasted almost three weeks on this fucking contract, and going back and shouting at the old man about it won’t help, but-- it _absolutely_ voids a contract when you neglect to fucking mention that the kid you’re looking for is _Jaskier_ the fucking _bard_.”

“Wait,” Sandro said, “you’ve been following me the whole time?”

Jaskier was giving Sandro the same look Axel was. “No, I just manifested out of thin air in the middle of the wilderness,” Axel said, rolling his eyes. “I-- who do you think has kept you safe from bounty hunters and bandits and bears and roving bands of wolves and drowners and ghouls this entire time?”

“You weren’t even going to hang our food in a tree,” Jaskier pointed out mildly. “I wondered how you’d lived long enough to not know about that yet. And I know better than to strike out cross-county _alone_ , Sandro. You should’ve been eaten by now.” Ah, confirmation: the Wolf _was_ here.

“You pitched a camp a hundred yards from a fucking endrega nest a week ago,” Axel said. “I _know_ you saw the bodies in the morning, even if you didn’t wake up the whole time I was fighting them.” He sighed, and said to Jaskier, “Selling the parts I got off them is the only money I’ve made this trip.” Come to think of it, the apothecary back in the city had straight-up _told_ Axel he was the second Witcher in as many weeks; why that hadn’t set alarm bells ringing was, in hindsight, sheer idiocy on Axel’s part.

“It’s the claws that fetch a decent rate, isn’t it, for those?” Jaskier said.

“Around here the herbalists want the venom,” Axel said, “but the claws are worth taking too.” He sighed. “I expect your Wolf is lurking somewhere downwind. I’ve been trying for a night and a day now to try to figure out where he is and I can’t, so, he wins, and can give over now.”

“Are you _afraid_ of him?” Jaskier asked, surprised.

“I told you,” Axel said, “he’s fucking nuts. There are only about half a dozen Wolf school Witchers left and they’re all completely insane. There’s one that hangs about with my brother, he’s _barking_ mad. In the city I could hold my own but only a suicidal Cat tries to hunt a Wolf in the woods like this.”

Jaskier tilted his head. “I haven’t seen him in a couple of days,” he admitted finally. “But he told me to expect you.”

Explicit confirmation. It was like cold water right down his spine, now, imagining the other Witcher’s eyes on his back.

Axel sighed heavily. “I’m used to clients not telling me everything,” he said. “I fully anticipated there’d be something absolutely hideous the old man was hiding; I’m used to that. I fully sussed from the beginning that he’d done something hideous to you; a child does not just turn ungrateful and run off for no reason whatsoever and stay gone well into adulthood. But I just didn’t foresee the _Toss A Coin_ kid bit, which goes to show you that after fifty years the Path can still surprise you.”

“Oh, I think that’s life, not just the Path,” Jaskier said knowingly.

“So I expect there’s no chance you’d want to go see the old man anyway?” Axel said. Jaskier flinched-- oh yes, the old man was certainly horrible-- and Axel held a hand up, palm out. “Ay-- I had to ask. I won’t push, I’d just feel stupid if I walked away and then you decided to head back there on your own to face down your demons or whatnot.”

“No,” Jaskier said, smiling tightly, “there’s no chance.” He made a gesture with one hand, thoughtful. “Though-- I’ll have to wait for Geralt to reappear to ask his opinion on it, but I might engage you instead to give Sandro and I safe passage somewhere.”

Axel perked up slightly. “I’m available,” he said. “And I’ve gone to all this trouble keeping Sandro alive, I’d quite like to see it through.”

“Geralt had said he’s eager to be off somewhere,” Jaskier said, “and he’d offered to conduct me to safety first, but I don’t know if he really meant that.”

“Ah,” Axel said, “the Wolf keep gets snowed in early, he might miss his chance to winter there if he’s down here much longer.”

“Is that it?” Jaskier said. Did the Wolf not keep his pet bard informed? Axel had visited Kaer Morhen once, as a stripling-- gone to see the first Witcher stronghold, the original, the place of legend, back when it had still been a stronghold. He didn’t know what it was like, now.

Probably it wasn’t anyplace you’d bring a pet, now that Axel thought of it.

“Oh, yes,” Axel said. “I went there once, saw the mysteries, but that was. Well, quite a while ago now. Don’t know what it’s like now. Only half a dozen Wolves left now, can’t imagine they keep it up very tidily.” He shook his head. “Well, where were you planning to go, then?”

“The Countess de Stael had offered to shelter me at her estate near the Angre,” Jaskier said, patting himself until he produced a letter from an inside pocket of his doublet, and unfolded it. “Provided it was only the bounty hunters you killed who’d read this letter?” and he looked at Sandro.

“Oh,” Sandro said. “Yes, the seal was intact before they broke it. Not even _I_ had read it.” He scowled. “I still haven’t. Is that what it says?”

“Yes,” Jaskier said. “You still haven’t read it because it’s private correspondence, my dear. And I hadn’t felt I could frankly discuss our choices with you until I found out who was tailing you.”

“De Stael,” Axel said. “Yes, I’m familiar with the area. I would go there with you. Both of you, I assume?”

“Yes,” Jaskier said. “She’d pay you. I don’t know _what_ she’d pay you, it depends how excited she is to see me. From the tone of this letter, a lot, but her attentions are at times fickle. Still, she bothered sending the letter, and has fended off several of my father’s messengers already. She at least doesn’t fear him.”

“He’s only a viscount,” Axel said. He pushed to his feet. “Well. I should leave you and go tend to my horses. I’ve a spare, so we can make good time. And, I presume, if your Wolf objects to the arrangement, he can come find me himself and talk me out of it.”

“I imagine he will, if he’s still around,” Jaskier said, grinning up at him fearlessly.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _finally_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, _Yrden_ probably doesn't work like that, but it's crucial for hilarity's sake, so we're using it.
> 
> Edited to add: I FORGOT I meant to acknowledge [tnico's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tnico/pseuds/tnico/works?fandom_id=299357) incredible characterizations of Lambert including his mastery of pickles (and botulinotoxin)!!! that's where that came from and those stories are _fantastic_ if you love Chaos Gremlin Lambert. The one specifically about pickling things is [Intent](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24086056).

Geralt thunked his head silently against the bole of a tree as the Cat witcher melted back into the shadows. A Cat witcher: the school of the Cat was notorious. Forced out of their keep a century ago, they’d been itinerant ever since, and there were rumors their mutations had become unstable. Worst, a number of them had taken on contracts as hired assassins. Some of them had done real disservice to the Witcher profession in general. At this point, Geralt generally considered anyone with a Cat medallion worse than a wildcard. He hadn’t _personally_ had to kill any yet, but it was a matter of time.

Although, Axel had said he’d been on the Path fifty years; he might be old enough not to be of the generation with the unstable mutations. Possibly. _Some_ of the Cats were at least reasonable enough that Lambert hung out with them, though he wouldn’t talk about it with any of his brothers-- that had to be who this Cat was talking about, that he knew a Wolf. And Lambert was an asshole, but he was actually generally one of the more sensible and cautious people Geralt knew.

(Eskel had gone and found out about it, a while back. Geralt hadn’t asked too many questions; if he’d needed to be told about it, Eskel would’ve told him and they’d’ve come up with something to do. If it wasn’t his business then there wasn’t anything wrong.)

Still. Jaskier had learned dangerous things. Geralt had definitely let him far, far too close, if he was so unintimidated by strange Witchers. It didn’t help that he’d met Eskel, too, that one time; he had a warped view now of what Witchers were like.

Well. The Cat had said he was expecting a visit from the Wolf now, and he was probably right, Geralt owed him that, at least. The question was whether he’d have a trap set or not.

Geralt knew better than to trail him back to his campsite. Of course he knew how to find it; he could smell the horses, and he could smell where the Cat had relieved himself earlier even though he’d buried it decently. (From _that_ , Geralt could tell he was a Witcher; his body didn’t have much of an odor but his urine had that telltale note to it, that my-kidneys-are-mutants tang. That highly distinctive I’ve-taken-potions-sometime-this-week scent that tended to linger.)

As he made his way slowly and silently through the woods, he caught the scent of a flare of _Igni_ ; the Cat had just lit a campfire. Not hiding at all, then. He kept going, circling around to approach out of the downwind side, smelling the fire coming up, smelling warming metal-- a kettle, set on the fire to boil water, likely-- and paced slowly the last little distance toward the campsite.

There was no cover; the Cat had chosen a site that afforded a good view in the direction the prevailing wind would travel. Ha, he was waiting for Geralt.

At this range, he’d be able to smell it if Geralt approached from windward; Cat noses weren’t hopeless, just not the equal of Wolf ones. Geralt stood a little while, seeing the warm flicker of firelight as the fire died down, smelling the odor of meat cooking-- a rabbit, spitted, maybe two rabbits-- and waited until the breeze shifted slightly for a few moments. He approached from the superior cover there, and stepped into the clearing to see that the Cat was kneeling as if in meditation, but was watching the downwind approach.

His eyes flicked over to Geralt immediately as he heard him, and he smiled slightly.

“Took you long enough,” he said. Geralt had met him before, he remembered it now. Quite a while back, it’d be now. He was distinctive, short and slender but well-built, with very dark skin and close-cropped hair, and his eyes a striking bright green.

“Axel,” Geralt said. Yes, he remembered him. He’d seemed reasonable enough, but there hadn’t been that much interaction.

“Geralt,” Axel said, and stood up. His swords were lying on the ground, and he made no attempt to pick them up. “Been a long time.”

Geralt nodded. He hadn’t come here with any particular plan. The fact that they weren’t already fighting was already better than he’d let himself hope.

“I didn’t know he was your bard,” Axel said. “The old man wasn’t exactly forthcoming.”

Geralt sighed. “He’s not _mine_ ,” he said.

Axel laughed. “Of course not,” he said, “you’re just lurking around in the woods protecting him by coincidence.” But there was nothing cruel or sarcastic in his laugh. “Come on, Wolf, your brother told me all about your pet bard that you insist isn’t your pet.”

Geralt gave Axel an unimpressed look. “How is Lambert, anyway?” he asked.

“How is he ever?” Axel asked. He spread his hands, in a vague shrug-like gesture. “He’s a fucking genius, but only at unpleasant things,” he went on, which nicely established that he wasn’t bluffing and had, in fact, met Lambert.

“That’s Lambert,” Geralt said. It wasn’t quite true, but there weren’t many people who knew what nice things Lambert was good at. “I haven’t seen him in a couple of years.”

“I saw him two or three months ago,” Axel said. “He seemed his usual self. Got mildly sauced and gave us a hilarious extemporaneous monologue about bomb construction that was approximately half profanities and obscenities, and half far more useful information than any of my instructors ever gave me, while wearing nothing but a beautifully-embroidered apron and some really fierce eyeliner.”

Geralt considered that. “Huh,” he said. “The monologue I expected, and he does spend more time mostly naked than anyone really ought to, but I wasn’t expecting the eyeliner.” It would be an odd detail to make up. The embroidered apron was in-character; Lambert mostly dressed as sensibly as the rest of them but he did like bright colors and tended to gravitate toward them when not busy pretending he was the toughest of them all. And if there was ever, ever an opportunity to dress up Lambert was the first to take it, on any pretext.

“He looked good in it,” Axel said. “Maybe it’s a recent discovery.”

“Could be,” Geralt allowed. “One thing Lambert does, is discover new things.” The Wolf School’s sudden mortal wound had kind of trapped them all into a permanent, frozen state, and Lambert maybe was the most trapped of them all, permanently reverted into being the youngest and constantly needing to prove himself, even though by any reasonable standard he was fully-mature and had proven himself dozens of times over. And yet, since there were no new Wolf witchers, there’d never be anyone younger than him, and he’d forever be the baby to Geralt and Eskel, and there was no escaping it. It made perfect sense that he’d seek out other company where he could be someone else, and maybe find new ways to express himself.

It even made sense that he wouldn’t then report back to his brothers about it.

But Axel, also, could be lying.

… It would just be a weird thing to lie about.

“You can ask him if you see him this winter,” Axel said. “Which brings me around to what I wanted to discuss.”

“The bard wants to hire you to take him to the Countess de Stael,” Geralt said.

“I _figured_ you were in earshot,” Axel said. “Then you heard the conversation. It’s true, if you don’t take off pretty soon you’re not going to get to Kaer Morhen before the pass gets snowed-in.”

“This is true,” Geralt conceded. Wait, he wasn’t considering actually letting this happen, was he? He sighed. “I don’t go to Kaer Morhen every year and it’s not exactly the end of the world if the pass gets snowed in before I can get up there,” he said.

“But,” Axel said, “it would help me recoup some of my lost effort on this contract.” He tilted his head charmingly.

“I gotta ask one thing,” Geralt said, regarding him narrowly. He trusted a charming Cat even less than he trusted an asshole Cat. “Why’d the old man hire a _witcher_ for this? What reason did he give?”

“He implied the boy had been charmed or ensorcelled somehow,” Axel said drily, “but he dropped that implication the moment I asked any pointed questions about it.” He shrugged. “I do a fair amount of missing people cases, lost objects, stuff that’s not monsters. I know we have our philosophical differences, between our schools, but I also know you lot do missing people too. It’s not just monsters.”

“Because the people are usually missing because of monsters,” Geralt said, but Axel was right; he’d done his share of mundane bodyguarding or straight-ahead-deductive investigative work or boring convoy escorting. It was just that his school had a rigid line that assassinations were on the far side of, while the Cat school did not.

But Geralt had done an assassination or two in his time, and he’d be a liar if he denied it. Axel tilted his head, watching him transparently have all these thoughts, and laughed silently, turning away and sitting back down next to the fire.

“Come on, brother Wolf,” Axel said, “sit with me and let’s talk this over. You want to go home for winter, and I want to get paid for this contract, one way or another. Even if you weren’t here, I wouldn’t hurt the _Toss A Coin_ bard.”

“Because I’d hunt you down?” Geralt said, eyeing him, but he did kick a hunk of wood into position and sit gingerly down on it. Axel wasn’t going to attack him, not now, not like this.

Axel laughed, out loud this time. He did have a charming smile, unaffected and sharp-toothed and bright.

“I mean, it _would_ be more than my life is worth,” Axel said. “But, no, Geralt, for his own merits I wouldn’t hurt him. Do you know how many times that song has helped me out of tight spots?” He gestured vaguely. “Incidentally I’ve told a lot of people that you and I are close friends, when they’ve asked about the song. I tell them all you and I go way back, and then I go on and on about how noble and self-sacrificing you are. By then they’ll usually buy me a drink, and if they seem receptive I tell them some of Lambert’s stories about you.”

“Lambert’s stories,” Geralt said, dismayed.

“The one about how you threw him out a window always goes over really well,” Axel said.

“Does it,” Geralt said. “How do you-- do you tell it like I threw _you_ out a window?”

“No, no,” Axel said, “I say it’s him, I just don’t mention whether I was there too or not.”

Geralt contemplated that for a moment. “I suppose it matters which time I threw him out a window,” he said. “It’s happened on several occasions.”

“What gets me is that you had to premeditate it,” Axel said. “Like-- he tells it like you just tossed him and he happened not to die, but you’d clearly rigged up a whole setup that was time-sensitive and you had to throw him into it within a certain time-frame.”

“Oh, yeah,” Geralt said. “No, Eskel helped me come up with it. We rigged the window so that it wouldn’t look like it was set up, but once he went through it the trap would go off and it would keep him from actually dying but he wouldn’t know that.”

“I didn’t know you could use _Yrden_ like that,” Axel said. “I think he thinks you cast the Sign after you threw him.”

“No,” Geralt said. “And I _can’t_ use _Yrden_ like that, only Eskel can get it to work. So I had him cast it, and then I threw Lambert into it, and the trap kept him from falling fast enough to die.”

“Also there happened to be a spot under the window that wasn’t full of jagged rocks like the others,” Axel said.

“We spent hours setting that up,” Geralt said. “We had a code word too, when Lambert was being super annoying we’d call it, and Eskel would go and wait on the floor below and I’d delay him until I figured it had been long enough-- about a minute and a half-- and then I’d attack him and throw him out the window and Eskel could control the Sign and he’d land on the huge pile of moss we kept under there for that very purpose. I think we probably did it half a dozen times, over a couple of decades.”

“He only talks about the once,” Axel said. He leaned over and flipped the rabbits on their spits. “Makes it sound completely spontaneous.”

“Never did know whether he’d figured out how we did it,” Geralt said.

“When he told it to us, he acted like it was this crazy thing you did just out of nowhere,” Axel said. “Never mentioned Eskel being involved.”

Geralt shook his head. “Lambert’s smart about most stuff,” he said, “but he sometimes doesn’t notice things. Though, even odds as to him figuring it out and just thinking it was a funny story to tell it like he hadn’t.” He considered another moment, and said, “Do you know Eskel?”

Axel shook his head. “He’s come around a time or two, never when Lambert’s there, but I haven’t spoken to him particularly. I think he tracked Aiden down and was grilling him pretty intensely about what his deal is with Lambert, but I got the feeling once he was satisfied there was nothing underhanded about it he made himself scarce and doesn’t come around.”

Geralt nodded; that was more or less what he and Eskel had agreed on, though since they didn’t really talk about that kind of stuff it was sometimes hit-or-miss whether their agreements were actually the same in both of their minds. But, well, talking wasn’t always reliable either, and mostly they understood one another better when they didn’t bother with it.

“He seems like a decent guy, though,” Axel said.

Geralt nodded again. Decent was a reasonably good word for Eskel, all-around. Eskel was more ruthless than Geralt, though; his agreeable and unassuming manner tended to obscure that, but Eskel absolutely had no hesitation at making hard choices. Geralt could stand to be more like him, sometimes.

Geralt blinked at the fire for a moment, stunned at how homesick he suddenly was. He wanted to go to Kaer Morhen and see everyone, but of course, it was laced through with the old tired sorrow: he wanted to go back to the Kaer Morhen that had been, before it was a ruin, before the bones in the moat, and of course, that was long gone, forever.

He collected himself, and said, “It’s not that I think you’d kill the bard, or let him get physically hurt, or hurt him yourself.”

“Then what do you think I’d do to him?” Axel asked.

Geralt gave the Cat a long, considering look. He wasn’t so outlandishly mutated as Geralt, was the thing-- besides the eyes, there was no real outward sign that he was a Witcher. He wasn’t particularly tall; he was in excellent fighting trim but he wasn’t particularly bulky. And he was attractive, with broad even features and bright straight teeth that showed when he smiled, which he seemed to often. If those teeth were a little sharper than a human’s might be, it didn’t look as frightening on him as it seemed to on Geralt. He wasn’t unscarred, but his face was largely unmarked, and on his dark skin the scars he did have didn’t stand out unattractively, not at all like Geralt’s livid purple seams against ghostly pallor.

No, for a Witcher, Axel wasn’t very monstrous at all.

“He’s not… very well, currently,” Geralt said, trying to think of how to explain it.

Axel contemplated that, then suddenly grinned over at Geralt. “You mean, he’s emotionally fragile and you think I’ll take advantage.”

“Well,” Geralt said. _Yes_. “I don’t--”

“He’s _your_ pet,” Axel said.

“It’s not that,” Geralt said.

Axel contemplated him, pulling his lower lip into his mouth and sucking on it as he thought, then letting it slide back out, repeating the process several times. He did have a beautiful mouth. “It is, though,” Axel said, eyes narrowed in amusement. “Is it that you’re fucking him, and don’t think he’d be faithful, or that you’re not, but you don’t want anyone else to do it either?”

“Neither,” Geralt said. He shouldn’t have said anything.

Axel shook his head at that, looking a little incredulous, then leaned over and pulled the rabbits carefully off the fire. He handed one of them to Geralt, holding it by the wooden stick through it. “Hungry? I made one for you, I figured you’d be by.”

Geralt blinked at him. It was a peace offering, certainly. He took it, and thanked him, and watched in some bemusement as Axel managed to eat a whole skinned rabbit neatly off a skewer, his manners almost delicate. He’d spent a lot of time at fine tables, certainly, and was less awkward about it even than Jaskier.

Geralt didn’t make a particular effort, but he did better than his own usual at not making a mess.

“Ah,” Axel said, when he’d finished. “I almost forgot, I have a special treat, and one you’ll appreciate.” He got up and went to his saddlebags, and tossed the rabbit bones into the fire as he went. Geralt took advantage of his distraction to eat most of the bones from his rabbit, something he only ever did in private. By the time Axel was finished rummaging, Geralt had cracked the long bones and gnawed them a bit and was tossing them into the fire-- normal people did that too sometimes, it wasn’t so odd as all that.

He forgot entirely about all of that the moment he saw the crock in Axel’s hand, sealed with a familiar style of wax drizzled across the cork-- the wax had been broken and reapplied, but the original hand was still visible there.

Axel laughed at his expression. “You know what this is,” he said.

“Lambert made you pickles,” Geralt said, stunned. That was basically the only thing Lambert was also a genius at that wasn’t unpleasant: he had come to Kaer Morhen already knowing an awful lot about fermenting and preserving food. It wasn’t all booze, though he made a truly stunning array of liquor, some of it good and much of it terrible because he was a troll. He also knew how to pickle literally anything that grew. And he never, ever talked about it, but over the years he’d learned who liked what, and even when their prank wars had been at their worst, Lambert had still made Geralt the kinds of preserves and pickles he liked the best. They were sacred, and were never involved in the prank wars-- not the ones sealed with wax. Geralt knew not to trust anything unsealed, but the wax was always a little declaration of truce.

Axel carefully scored the wax to pull the cork out, and used a fork to fish out one of the pickles. It was a little gherkin, preserved in brine with herbs. He handed the crock and the fork to Geralt. Geralt turned the crock, looking at the wax spilled down the side. Sure enough, there was Lambert’s thumbprint.

“He always marks them with his thumb,” Axel said quietly.

“Left thumb, and the date next to it,” Geralt said, feeling for the marks with his own thumb. Sure enough, little scratches, mostly cracked away now. Enough left to tell these were from midsummer of last year. Lambert used his right thumb on potions, if he sealed those with wax, but that was as much insight as Geralt had into it. He’d never been given anything marked with Lambert’s right thumb, and hadn’t pried into it more than just having observed it. He’d had a tantalizing glimpse that Lambert used other fingerprints to mark wax on things but he had no idea what those would mean. Obviously, it all was deeply meaningful to Lambert, and that was enough to know he shouldn’t mess with it. Messing with Lambert was one of his chief pleasures, during his stays at Kaer Morhen, but it only worked if everyone obeyed the rules and stayed within the lines.

“Oh,” Axel said, “I didn’t know that.”

“It’s coded,” Geralt said. “Dots and lines. Dots for the month, lines for the year.” He collected himself, used the fork to spear himself one of the little gherkins, and kept it in his hand, returning the fork and the crock to Axel. Axel smiled, and shoved the cork back in, and set the crock on a stone near the fire.

The gherkin had been pickled with dill, caraway, and celery seed, a specific blend Geralt couldn’t recall encountering before. It was perfect, with just a little snap still to it; just the faintest tang of alum told him how the vegetables could possibly still be firm, after months in brine.

“I hoard them,” Axel said, “but for an aficionado, I can spare one.”

“He doesn’t make this kind for us,” Geralt said, chewing slowly. “Not with the caraway. This is a special batch for somebody.”

“It is,” Axel said, smiling. In the firelight, Geralt could see that the top of the cork had an A scratched into it, half-hidden by re-melted wax.

“You?” Geralt said, astonished.

Axel laughed. “No,” he said, “it’s for the Cats in general, not specifically me. I rate a couple of jars, but not a custom batch.” He grinned. “But the caraway was my suggestion.”

“It’s a good suggestion,” Geralt said. So… Lambert was friends with someone who was friends with Axel, but this didn’t mean a direct connection, necessarily. Still, it was pretty compelling. Hard to resist trusting him.

Possibly, by design. And the thing about Lambert was that he had rules for everything. He never unconditionally accepted anything. If he trusted Axel, he did so only in highly-constrained, conditional ways. He would trust Axel to do some thing, in a specific circumstance, and if asked, could enumerate precisely the boundaries of that trust.

Geralt didn’t have access to any of the information Lambert would have accumulated to make those decisions, and didn’t have access to the man himself to ask him about this circumstance, so he was going to have to extrapolate. Because it sure would be handy to be able to hand Jaskier and his friend over to this fellow, and know that in the spring he’d get to suffer through various odes to the fair Countess. But he was running the risk of instead finding Jaskier trapped in Lettenhove, wherever that was, or possibly dead.

Axel took the little crock back, re-softened some of the wax to reapply the seal, and packed it back up with his supplies. Geralt had let himself sprawl out a bit, more comfortably, and was thinking about what he was going to do.

“So tell me some more Lambert stories,” Axel said, coming and sprawling next to him, more or less mirroring his posture. “He’s told me a lot of stories about you, you know.”

“I’m sure he has,” Geralt said. He yawned, and snapped his teeth at the end of it. “But I’m going to tell you a Jaskier story instead.” He pondered for a moment, and then told the story of the Chort nest, how he’d taken Cat potion and then been unable to endure the daylight, and Jaskier had not only managed to save him but had found them a barn to shelter in.

“That’s quick thinking,” Axel said. “Why didn’t you have a White Honey?”

Geralt shook his head. “Well,” he said. “That was also his fault, sort of,” and he explained leaving the baggage behind in Jaskier’s room. “But I can’t really blame him for that. I suppose that’s the lesson, here, that Jaskier has a way of getting you into worse trouble, but at least he helps you get back out of it.”

“You’re fond of him, as, like, a _person_ ,” Axel supplied.

“Yes,” Geralt said. Then he hesitated. “Not… _fond_ ,” he hedged.

“Right, right,” Axel said, and laughed. “Of course not. The White Wolf doesn’t have friends!” He let that go for a moment, and then said, “Did he give you that name?”

“He did,” Geralt admitted.

“Lambert calls you the Wolf, though, which we all think is really funny,” Axel said.

Geralt shrugged. “That’s different,” he said.

“We were calling him the Wolf for a while, for obvious reasons, but after a bit he got mad and said that wasn’t his name and wouldn’t answer to it,” Axel said. “So we started calling him the Lamb because we thought he’d get madder about that, but he didn’t mind it, weirdly?”

Geralt shook his head. “We used to call him that too,” he said. “Never really bothered him. It’s just his name.”

“So why are _you_ the Wolf?” Axel asked. “A whole school of Wolf witchers, and you’re The Wolf?”

Geralt shrugged. “Dunno,” he said. “I just am. But that was just us, calling me that; outside people never did. Jaskier came up with the White Wolf in a fit of poeticality, which is a thing he does sometimes and mostly it’s bullshit. But it’s better than the old nickname so I kept it.”

He absolutely wasn’t going to talk to Axel about his nickname, about that wolf hunt when he was a child. In the Kaer Morhen of yore, full of life and death and things happening, it wasn’t like they’d thought about their totem animal all that much. It hadn’t been relevant the way it was out in the rest of the world. But the Blue Mountains were full of wolves, their songs punctuated every night’s silence, and every so often some livestock or a child or an unwary trainee would get dragged off by a pack. Wolves were the first monster the young Witchers in training were taught to hunt, out of pure necessity, and Geralt had been unusually precocious in taking his first wolf, in spectacular fashion.

But it wasn’t a Cat’s business, it wasn’t anything anyone needed to know except the people who already did-- the few survivors who still remembered, and those numbers dwindling. Eventually he would either die and it wouldn’t matter, or everyone else who knew would die, and then he would be the only wolf so no one would wonder anymore, and it wouldn’t matter.

He didn’t want to think about that, didn’t want to contemplate being the last.

It was time to be done thinking, and time to make a choice. He needed more information, and he could think of a sure-fire way to get it. He had reason to think that an advance wouldn’t be unwelcome, but even if it was, he could still get information out of that, too.

“Hm,” Axel was saying, mulling over whatever the hell Geralt had just said. “I mean. Fair enough.”

“I don’t suppose,” Geralt said thoughtfully, “you’ve been out here long enough to get properly bored.”

“Bored,” Axel said, frowning. “Bored like…”

“You know,” Geralt said. He decided to go for humor. “Fuck, don’t make me use my words.”

“Is it that Lambert uses them all up for you?” Axel said, obligingly amused.

“He does use a lot of words,” Geralt allowed. He sighed. “He’s not here now, though, I’ve no excuse.”

“Give me something to go on, here,” Axel said. “You think I might be bored, so you want maybe…” He paused, then said, in a different tone, “Are you _propositioning_ me?”

Geralt tilted his head. “Only if you want me to be,” he said mildly. “I mean, it’s been a long boring season on the Path, is all.”

“What about your bard?” Axel asked.

Geralt tried to think of how to explain something he wasn’t sure he fully understood, himself. “That’s complicated enough as it is,” he said. “I don’t tend to… fuck humans unless I’m reasonably sure I won’t see them again. It’s just too...”

“Complicated,” Axel filled in for him.

“Yes,” Geralt said.

“I suppose if I had a pet of any kind I wouldn’t fuck it either,” Axel said.

“I don’t know,” Geralt said, “I’ve never had a pet.”

Axel laughed; he really was attractive, and not just for a witcher, but objectively. Well, if he did seduce Jaskier, at least Geralt could amuse himself at having tried it first. “Well,” he said, “I’m not about to turn down the White Wolf. Let’s see whether there ought to be any more salacious legends.”

“Only if you don’t call me that,” Geralt said.

It wasn’t the first time Geralt had traded favors on a thin bedroll in the middle of the woods by a dying fire. They kept it pretty simple, kept most of their clothes on. Axel was no blushing kid, and knew his way around a cock, with a devastating combination of frank good humor and delicate finesse. Geralt got him off first, because he wanted to, because Axel let him, because it was mostly what he wanted-- fleeting closeness and warmth and getting to know the hitch of another’s breath-- and then Axel finished him off, deft and friendly and toe-curling.

Geralt let himself enjoy it, let himself drift pleasantly for a few minutes, pressed against the Cat, another hard slow heartbeat evening out with his. Axel smelled good; up close, Geralt could tell he was a Witcher after all. Mostly he smelled pleasantly human, laced with herbs and smoke and clean outdoor dirt, a faint fragrance in his hair oil, the hint of laundry soap-- faint clean human city smells-- it was the absence of strong perfumes, the mildness of all the other scents, that pointed out that he was a Witcher.

Geralt dozed a little; Axel seemed to genuinely be asleep. He hadn’t pulled away, so they lay pressed together, fully clothed. He should go, really, should get back to Roach. But it was nice just to touch someone, so he let himself have that, and lay feeling body warmth and a slow heartbeat and listening to the night noises of the woods.

A fox came by, undisturbed, hunting in her normal way; she came quite close, sniffing around the camp. Suddenly she froze, then turned and ran, and Geralt knew she’d smelled him. This time it was funny, and he smiled to himself about it.

“Really,” Axel said, some time later, as a bird started singing-- it wouldn’t be dawn for a bit but some birds liked a head start-- “I won’t hurt your bard.”

“And not just because you know I could find you,” Geralt said.

“Right,” Axel said.

Geralt considered it. He’d mostly made the choice, in his heart, already; he didn’t want to spend a cold winter somewhere. He wanted to go home. He wanted to needle Lambert (he’d already thought of how to bring it up; saying _I got to pet a Cat_ would infuriate Lambert just the right amount), he wanted to lie like this with someone who really knew him and who wouldn’t feel the need to explain anything.

He wanted Jaskier to be safe but he also didn’t want to transgress the boundary he’d already gone a fair ways toward destroying.

Fuck, he _had--_ “I had to _Axii_ the kid the other day,” he said. “He doesn’t know. I don’t know how to explain it to him. Haven’t had a chance, don’t even know how to start.”

“Shit,” Axel said.

“He was going to hurt himself,” Geralt said. “There was--” He shook his head. “Had himself hostage, to keep bounty hunters at bay. I used the sign on them to stop them, but he was so worked-up I don’t think he understood what was going on, and I just-- I couldn’t see how else to get the knife away from him.”

“Of course he wouldn’t remember it,” Axel said. He shook his head. “That’s-- I don’t know if I’ve ever used that one on a person I planned to talk to again after.”

“I certainly never have,” Geralt said. “I mean-- except other Witchers, that’s just-- and only for fun,” he added hastily, hearing Axel’s breath pause for a moment. “Like, to fuck with Lambert or something. And practicing, when we were kids. I don’t-- I use it for fighting, mostly, or to avoid a fight.”

“Yeah,” Axel said. “It’s not-- you can’t really let people know we have that one, you know?”

“I do,” Geralt said, relieved. At least officially, then, that was the Cat attitude too, which indicated at least institutionally a reassuring sanity. “I do know, yeah.” He sighed, going grim again. “So anyway. I haven’t explained it to him and I… don’t know how.”

“Probably don’t,” Axel said.

Geralt pulled away a little to look at him. “Don’t?”

“I get that honesty’s important,” Axel said, “but I just don’t think I’d explain it, unless he remembers enough to ask about it.”

“Hm,” Geralt said.

Axel sat up and looked at him. “I mean,” he said, “don’t do it _again_ , but.” He shook his head. “If it doesn’t come up I would not bring it up.”

“You might be right,” Geralt admitted. “He was in a bad, bad way.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Axel said. They looked at one another a moment. “So you’re on board with the plan?”

“I am,” Geralt said, at last. “Yeah.”

Nerio and Jaskier were just waking up, sleepily trying to make tea and organize themselves. “Sandro’s not what you’d consider _together_ in the mornings,” Axel said quietly, as they stood together observing the campsite. Geralt grunted in acknowledgement, and then thought about how the other witcher had clearly been observing Jaskier’s friend closely this whole time.

“You sound fond,” Geralt ventured, sliding him a look.

Axel shrugged. “I am,” he said. “I like the kid. I’ve kept him alive this long.”

“Hm,” Geralt said, in something like agreement.

Jaskier had managed to poke up the fire and get it going. He hadn’t slept well, and looked bleary and needed a shave. But he was moving with purpose, and had already packed up his bedroll.

Axel had captured a spare horse, which he was figuring on designating for Jaskier’s use. That would allow them to move a little faster. Geralt had retrieved Roach, since so many of Jaskier’s belongings were on her. He’d repacked the baggage, to make it easier to send Jaskier on his way; he’d dug out some spare saddlebags, and transferred Jaskier’s belongings into them, including two of Geralt’s shirts to eke out his inadequate wardrobe, and a couple of pairs of Geralt’s socks. Geralt could get more, had more already back at Kaer Morhen. Jaskier would surely get new clothes from his noble patroness but in the meantime he’d be less chilly.

“Should we,” Axel said hesitantly, and Geralt decided there was no point being cagey about it. He led Roach straight into the clearing.

Jaskier looked up. “Ah,” he said, “there you are, Geralt,” and sounded warm and polite and a bit like he was playing a part in a theatre production.

Nerio looked up, and did an overexaggerated double-take, scrambling up in undignified startlement. “Jaskier, who is this?”

Geralt gave him an unimpressed look, and ground-tied Roach so he could come over and drop into a crouch next to Jaskier. “Remember,” he said, a little testily, “how I told you, years ago, that if you ever met a Witcher with a medallion of a cat, you should run away?”

Jaskier regarded him politely, unimpressed. “I don’t recall,” he said, but his mouth compressed a bit. “Geralt! Did you kill him?”

Geralt let that sit a moment, and then glanced over toward where Axel was standing with his two horses, just out of view. “No,” he said, aware that he was weakening his own point. “I was just wondering if you remembered that.”

Nerio had given up on panicking and sat down next to Jaskier. “Who is this,” he said, a bit forlornly.

“That’s the White Wolf, of song and story,” Jaskier said.

“Jaskier,” Geralt said wearily, trying to wrestle the subject back around.

“I’m quite sure Axel won’t kill me,” Jaskier said. “I’m an excellent judge of character.”

“You can’t just-- judge a Witcher’s character,” Geralt said. “We’re insanely dangerous, Jaskier.”

“I was right about you,” Jaskier pointed out reasonably.

“He has a point, there,” Axel said, leading his horses into the clearing. Nerio panicked anew on sight of him, but Geralt ignored him and so did Jaskier.

“He _does not_ have a point,” Geralt said. “The fact that the trouble I’ve led him into is currently still outweighed by the benefit to his career is not really something he could have calculated from that first meeting.”

Axel came over and squatted across the fire, addressing himself to Nerio. “Hello, Sandro,” he said. “I’ve been following you for weeks, we went over this. If I were going to let you come to harm I already would have.”

“Where _were_ they last night?” Nerio demanded of Jaskier. “You act like you expected them!”

“I agreed with Axel that he was going to see us to the Countess de Stael’s,” Jaskier said. “You were there. I assumed he’d have to come back for that to happen. I expect Geralt has given him some sort of talking-to, or perhaps he has given Geralt some sort of talking-to.”

“Surely it was a mutual talking-to,” Axel said, giving Geralt an amused glitter of a look. Geralt kept his expression flat, and just grunted.

“As long as he didn’t kill you,” Jaskier said.

Axel pretended to look wounded. “Did you think he would?”

“Now that you mention it,” Jaskier said, “I _do_ have a vague recollection of Geralt telling me Witchers with a Cat medallion weren’t to be trusted.”

Axel smiled to himself, though Geralt thought he was concealing some hurt. “Ah, there are some rotten apples in that barrel, I won’t lie,” he said. “But one of my brothers is close to one of _his_ brothers,” and he gestured toward Geralt, “and so either I’ve satisfied him as to my trustworthiness, or he’s planning to follow us through the woods and kill me later.” He grinned. “They say some things about Cat witchers that may or may not be true in all cases, but what they say about Wolf witchers is that they are absolutely unhinged, so I wouldn’t deny either possibility.”

“Mm,” Jaskier said, giving Geralt a funny look-- was it _fond_? It might have been fond. “Honestly, I don’t think he’ll follow us. He’s got to be near the end of How Much Buttercup He Can Take.”

Geralt frowned at him. That wasn’t fair at all. It wasn’t-- it wasn’t that he couldn’t put up with Jaskier, it was that he was getting too close to him and had to pull away for his own good. How to explain that without making it sound like the first thing, he didn’t know.

“Well,” Axel said diplomatically, “that, and if he doesn’t leave soon, he’ll be snowed out of home for the winter.”

“And you don’t have a home to winter in?” Jaskier asked.

“Oh,” Axel said, smiling, “I do, if I want, but it’s not in the Blue Mountains, so I have rather a bit more time to make my arrangements.”

“The Countess would want us to make haste,” Nerio put in, clearly looking for a way to contribute to the conversation.

Jaskier gave him a small smile, and then looked at Axel. “Just so you’re aware, I know my father’s men have orders that the first thing they’re to do if they catch me is break all the fingers of my left hand.”

The fingers he used to fret the lute. Geralt looked away, feeling sick.

“Why?” Axel asked, astonished-- but there was no hint of guilt. Geralt knew that was what Jaskier was looking for, any sign that Axel still thought it harmless enough that he might try to fulfill the original contract after all.

“I write with my right,” Jaskier said, waggling those fingers, still smiling pleasantly. “Left is only for the lute, and he doesn’t need me to be able to do that. It’d be a shame, it’s a proper genteel pastime to play a little, but I’d still be useful to him without.”

“Fuck,” Axel said, looking horrified and sick. “Listen, I knew he was-- Jaskier, I’m not taking you there, I won’t betray you.”

“You’d have to go through me,” Nerio said stoutly.

Geralt expected Axel to laugh at him, but the Cat witcher just looked at him and smiled fondly. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Sandro,” he said.

Geralt looked at Jaskier, who looked at him. Geralt nodded slightly, giving him a wry look: Axel wasn’t lying, as far as Geralt could tell, and that was about the best he could do.

He wanted to do more, but he also felt like he had to get out of here. He entertained the brief thought of stopping by wherever Jaskier’s father lived and convincing him to cancel the contract, but firstly, that would entail getting far too involved, and secondly, that would probably stray over the line into assassination.

No, he couldn’t do that.

He stood and went to Roach. “I repacked your bags,” he said, pulling the spare saddlebags off his horse’s back. Axel stood and went to his spare horse, and Geralt handed them to him, and handed over the lute case. Axel fastened all skillfully enough to the horse’s tack, even figuring out that he had to put the lute carefully on the top of the load.

Jaskier had gone to collect his things, and he came over with the small satchel he’d been carrying. Geralt took it from him and waited, since Axel was in the midst of lashing the lute into place.

Jaskier looked up into Geralt’s face. “Thank you,” he said solemnly. “For-- being so kind to me, all this time.”

Geralt looked down at him-- it was never as far down as he expected it to be, Jaskier was really not as small as Geralt’s mental image of him-- and remembered, suddenly, that he had never explained _Axii_ to him. At least the nick on his neck had healed, visible only as a faint healed red mark now.

He considered how he’d explain it, and realized Axel was right: there was nowhere to even begin. So he sighed, heavily, and shook his head slightly. “No, no,” he said, but then he didn’t really know what to say. He put his hand on Jaskier’s shoulder, and shook him slightly. “I’ll find you, in the spring?”

Jaskier smiled, just a small smile. “Certainly,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that took a month. 
> 
> I just noticed this is the only story where Geralt does the Slav Squat. 
> 
> My day job wants me to come back but not full time and actually maybe they don't really want me to come back. Who fucking knows. I still am not getting unemployment, it says pending review, we're now on week 20 of pending review, I have no further insights. The farm remains hectic but at least _that's_ going well. Nobody's got the 'rona yet, somehow. I'm getting used to facemasks maybe. I am literally never going to manage to get an appointment at the DMV to replace my defective license plate.  
> Thanks for staying tuned in. Thanks for escaping to this weird lil world with me.  
> Stay safe out there. <3 <3 <3


End file.
